


The Difference The One Who Sees Makes

by MsSunshine



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Apocalypse Prevented, Crossover, Gen, Post-Africa Xander
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-03 01:14:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4080883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsSunshine/pseuds/MsSunshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean says they’re going to kill the devil. Somehow. Bobby thinks that they might be able to pull it off, but only with the help of some old acquaintances of his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Setting: Immediately following Dean’s speech to Bobby at the hospital in “Sympathy For the Devil” (05.01) of Supernatural and post “Chosen” (07.22) of Buffy  
> Summary: Dean says they’re going to kill the devil. Somehow. Bobby thinks that they might be able to pull it off, but only with the help of some old acquaintances of his.  
> Pairing: None  
> Author’s Note: This will be the second site that I've posted this fic. It is completed, but I will be only posting one chapter a week. I hope you enjoy my work!  
> Distribution: Please ask permission if you want this work featured anywhere else.  
> Standard Disclaimer: The Supernatural premise and characters were created by Eric Kripke. The Buffy the Vampire Slayer premise and characters are distributed by 20th Century Fox, The WB, UPN and created by Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy (Grr, Arg). The story, all names, characters and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons, places, buildings and products is intended or should be inferred. “Eating rocks may lead to broken teeth.”

Chapter 1/11

 

The speech had been emphatic and well worded. In fact, Bobby even found himself believing that there might be hope. For a moment, he remained still, looking across the room at Dean and the almost earnest expression on his face. Then, with a shake of his head, he reached for the bedside table that held all of his personal possessions. 

“Bobby?” Sam asked curiously. “What are you doing?”

He felt around inside the top drawer, the only one that he could reach on his own, until his fingers touched on what he had been looking for. From inside he pulled out a well-worn leather journal that was the twin to John’s. He flipped through the pages until he came across a list of numbers. There were no names written next to them, but Bobby’s photographic memory instantly filled in the blanks. He glanced up at the boys with a hand holding his spot on the page. “Well, if your genius plan is to ‘kill the Devil’ -- somehow -- we sure as hell’re gunna need some help. I know a lot a people and someone out there is bound to know something that we don’t.”

Dean shifted uneasily and the shelf that he was leaning against groaned in protest. He slowly dropped down into the nearest chair and regarded him silently. Though he had appeared energetic and driven only moments before, he now looked defeated. His eyes, no longer flashing with the fire of his determination, were a bit too empty for Bobby’s peace of mind. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck as he said, “That’s great, Bobby. But what exactly are you planning on telling them? ‘Cause, sure as shit, the truth is gunna get us killed.”

Bobby winced. It wasn’t like Dean was exaggerating or anything, but the matter of fact tone was unsettling. There had been a time when Dean would have followed a statement like that up with a joke or at least some kind of fight. He took a deep breath to fortify himself before saying, “Believe me, boy, I know a thing or two about bending the facts. We can still get the help we need without revealing every tiny detail. Plus, I happen to know a handful of people that have helped to start their own apocalypse a time or two.”

“I don’t know, Bobby,” Sam said dubiously. He leaned a hip against the foot of Bobby’s hospital bed and crossed his arms over his chest. The blade on his belt was strategically placed so that his current position was the best one for making a quick grab. Unlike Dean, his eyes were stormy. They clearly displayed all of the angry emotions that he was feeling. The way that he was grinding his teeth and clenching his jaw were also good indicators of his emotional state. “How do we know that this won’t come back to bite us in the ass?”

“Because,” Bobby replied heatedly, starting to feel his temper flare. “I’m not some snot-nosed id-jet that doesn’t know how to cover his tracks!”

He returned his gaze to his journal and picked up his cell phone. He wasn’t about to obey the rules that required people to turn off their electronic devices; he had too many people that relied on him. Plus, phone bills were one of the many hidden gold mines of the hospital business. 

The amount of vehemence he put into dialing the first number on his list was enough to force him to start over twice, but by the time the line started to ring, he was once again in control. He hated just how easily the Winchester boys got him riled up. He usually chalked it up to them being like the two sons he’d never had, but he knew that there was more to it. They were better hunters than he had ever been. Sure he had more knowledge than them, but that came from being sidelined by the younger generation more and more often than anything else. Even in his prime he hadn’t been as accomplished as Sam and Dean Winchester. Of course, the same could be said for the opposite side of the coin. He’d never had near as much bad luck as them either.

He hated that he was jealous of their ability. Especially considering just how much the two of them had been through. Those two boys had been put through more tests and trials than almost all of the continental US combined. They were as good as they were because they had to be, because they had no other choice. For them, it was a matter of being the best or being dead. Several times over. His jealousy was more than ill placed, it was down right suicidal.

Bobby ignored the looks that the boys exchanged. He knew from experience the information that the two of them could obtain from each other simply by locking their eyes for a moment. He could tell from the way that Sam tensed when he glanced over his shoulder to share a look with his brother that he was disturbed by what he saw. Sam had probably intended to share his concern about Bobby building up his hopes with absolutely no groundwork to support them. Instead, like Bobby had earlier, he would have found himself faced with Dean’s almost absent gaze. His older brother was so broken down from the constant struggle that he couldn’t bring himself to believe that there was any help out there. Most likely he thought that even if someone could, they never would help. It didn’t surprise Bobby that Sam was the first to look away. The younger boy didn’t like to be faced with the level of torment that Dean was in, that he believed he had caused. As much as he knew the fight was going to be endless and grueling, Bobby knew that Sam wasn’t ready to admit just how royally screwed they all really were. 

Finally, the line was picked up on the other end and Bobby let out a sigh of relief. “Hey, Deardra, it’s Bobby. You wouldn’t happen to know how I could get in contact with Nikki's old guardian, Bernard Crowley, would you?”


	2. Chapter 2/11

2\. Chapter Two

Setting: Following the events in “Good God, Y’All!” (05.02) of Supernatural, post “Chosen” (07.22) of Buffy

 

As Giles walked into his office and took off his jacket, he greeted his assistant, Heidi, absently then asked, "Anything happen while I was out?"

"No." She took a breath and pulled out a stack of papers wrapped in a manilla folder. "I’ve been doing some research regarding an explosion that took place a week or so back in Ilchester, Maryland. It marked the start of a rash of apocalyptic omens. Nothing much to write home about, just some extreme weather and strange missing persons reports. It's nothing compared to the omens that have been coming out of China."

"That might be so, but speaking from experience, any apocalypse coming out of the States is much harder to pin down than anywhere else in the word," Giles explained to the girl. "The congregation of so many different cultural groups, coupled with a lack of a strict religious following makes for a much wider apocalyptic base." 

Heidi, a Slayer of about fifteen, had been sent to him thanks to the fact that she'd managed to get herself pregnant. In all the years that Giles had been a watcher, he'd never heard of an active Slayer being able to produce young. It had something to do with the chemicals and endorphins produced in reaction to their fight or flight response. These were counter productive to the childbearing process along side their incredibly increased metabolism. This was also why a Slayer's menstrual cycle was so unpredictable in the first place and the vast majority of the girls were counseled to take regular birth control. The only other active Slayer recorded as having a child had been Nikki Wood and all evidence had pointed to the possibility that she'd conceived before being called.

She flushed. "Of course."

Giles offered a slight smile, not wanting her to think that he was reprimanding her. She had been read the riot act several times over, especially when it had been discovered that she'd been actively slaying for nearly the full first two months of her pregnancy. Her watcher along with her senior Slayer, Margo, and Den Mother -- the tongue in cheek nickname they'd given Andrew when he'd taken over the upkeep of Jenkin's House in Cardiff -- had all been horrified when they'd first learned the truth behind Heidi's slowly developed sluggishness and loss of equanimity. That was, before the anger had set in of course.

"Do we have any catalogued prophecy for the area in question?" he asked softly. He'd learned over the past several days that even the slightest hint of a negative emotion directed at Heidi could upset her. And she tended to accidentally break things when she was upset.

Heidi, offering a slightly watery smile, said, "No, but in the early seventies a priest went mad and massacred about a dozen nuns at the local house of worship. Shortly thereafter, the convent was shut down and about five years later the building was condemned."

He nodded slowly. Although the foreshadowing was extensive, he didn't see how it connected to the present. "Now, what was it that made you bring up Maryland in the first place?"

"Jessups call four days ago. In Marion's semiannual report, he explained that his wife spoke with Naomi who'd seen Deardra. She mentioned a conversation she'd had with a Mr Singer," Heidi stated. Seeing a look of confusion marring Giles's face, she hastened to explain herself. "Mr Singer called Deardra looking for help to prevent a local apocalypse. No particulars were given, but I thought that I should do a little research before I told you about it."

Understanding finally setting in, Giles obtained Singer's contact information from her and dialed the international number. It was only after the third ring that he realized he hadn't taken the chance to figure out the time difference between them. By then it was too late, as the line had been answered and a gruff voice on the other end offered a surly salutation. "Yes, hello, my name is Rupert Giles. I'm head of the United Coalition of Slayers and Watchers. I apologize for the lateness of my call, but I've been led to believe that you've been seeking out help in regards to some abnormal troubles that you've come across."

"Bobby Singer and you've got that about half right. Hell's about to land on earth and I need some help from you watchers across the pond on how to stop it. I used to know Bernard in New York, but no one seems to want to tell me where he is," the man explained over the crackling line.

"I'm sure that they would if they knew. He went missing in the early eighties," Giles stated. He took the page of notes that Heidi handed him and gave them a cursory once over as he said, "From the looks of things on my end, you're dealing with a relatively low grade apocalypse. I will organize some people into doing some research for you, but for now, that's all that I can promise."

"Excuse me? What the hell do you mean by 'low grade apocalypse?' This is the end of the world we're talking about here!" Bobby bellowed. "Don't you understand the concept of 'hell on earth’? Or does the term confuse you? We need help, not more research!"

Giles sighed. Despite all of the years that he'd worked overseas, he'd yet to get used to the abrasiveness of Americans. It was probably thanks to the fact that he'd been back in his homeland for the past four years and had become more desensitized than he'd thought. Wearily, he offered, "Pardon me, but our numbers are already stretched to the limit as it is. The omens surrounding your apocalypse are low in number and still unpredictable. As we speak, I've four different prophecies of varying apocalypses running down -- the world is scheduled to end six times in four different countries before the end of this year. There have been reports of a dragon infestation in Vancouver, Canada and a new hell mouth is possibly opening up in France. You're apocalypse simply doesn't bare any precedence at this time. If someone happens to get a free moment, I might be able to send them your way, but until then, research is all that you'll get. And you should be happy for that much."

He riffled off the numbers to his office's telephone and fax so that the man could send them all of the information that he already had and quickly rung off. Idly, he couldn't help but think that Bobby had been far more desperate for help than the situation seemed to have merited. As the thought continued to nag at him, he picked up the phone again. He dialed from memory and glanced over at Heidi to be sure that she was making herself useful. The Slayer had her nose buried deep into one of the many accounting files that had been building up since his last assistant had transferred out. 

When the phone was pick up on the other end, he said, "Ah, yes, Xander. Willow was telling me that you were hoping to get a vacation in sometime before Christmas. I think that you most definitely deserve it, but before that, there's a small situation growing in the States that I was hoping you might be willing to look into on your way to California. It shouldn't be too much trouble. I'd just like you to take a look around and placate the locals. I'm sure that they'll calm down once you've had a chance to check things over."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three  
Setting: Following the events in “The Real Ghostbusters” (05.09) of Supernatural, post “Chosen” (07.22) of Buffy  
Author’s Note: Becky said that it was revealed in “Chapter 33 of ‘Time is on My Side’ … where Bela gives the colt to a demon named Crowley” but I decided to take a little artistic license and changed things around a bit so there’s some context for the events of “Dream a Little Dream of Me.”  
Another Author’s Note: It’s been repeatedly suggested in the show that Chuck is a pretty bad writer. I’m not sure if I’ve managed to capture his style on not. If I have, please forgive me.

 

_Dream a Little Dream of Me  
Epilogue_

_The colt touched the counter with a metallic click, just loud enough to send a shiver of apprehension down Bela’s spine. She tried her best to ignore the decadence of her palatial surroundings. In four too short weeks, she would never again experience another human comfort or extravagances such as these. In her nearly twenty-five years she’d lived better than most even dreamed to and her memories of those years were going to have to hold her once she landed in the pit._

_“Abbie,” a well dressed demon purred, “I never thought that you’d’ve come through for us.”_

_Not impressed by the demon’s obvious attempt to intimidate her with the use of her given name, she looked down her nose at him. This was a mean feat thanks to his being just a touch taller than her. In as icy a tone as she could manage, she replied, “Then you don’t know me very well, do you?”_

_A raspy chuckle bubbled up from the demon’s throat and his eyes flashed the deep blood red that spoke of his trade. He took a step closer and reached out a single finger to stroke the barrel of the historic gun. The look on his face was that of the truly pious meeting the object of their prayers. He silently, and without further comment, returned to his spot at Lilith’s side._

_“Who’s this, then?” Bela couldn’t help but ask. Her curiosity was truly piqued. Usually Lilith would smoke into a nearby meatsuit whenever she wanted to make contact. Never before had Bela been summoned to her side like this._

_Lilith, who was wearing the body of a chalky, blond, preadolescent girl with porcelain doll features, looked up at the demon at her side and smiled beatifically. In a high, lispy voice, with a thick Irish accent she explained, “This is Fergus. He’s a favourite of mine. He’s the one that’s going to take the colt and hide it away from the world.”_

_“Please, call me Crowley,” the demon requested as he placed a hand over his heart and gave a shallow, though courtly, bow._

_Bela frowned, her brows gathering together in a tight knot. Her usually stoic expression marred by her suspicion of the demon’s intentions. “Crowley?”_

_“The name of the meatsuit I’m wearing. He was quite accomplished. I think that a man of his esteem deserves to be given some recognition,” Crowley explained in such a way as to leave Bela completely clueless to his meaning. He grinned beatifically at her when her brows furrowed in confusion._

_“Crowley used to be what you would call a hunter,” Lilith offered, for once in a talkative mood. She took Crowley’s hand in hers and began to swing it back and forth between them as she spoke. “But that doesn’t matter.”_

_Bela fought the urge to give away her uneasiness and willed her heart to stop racing. She’d completed her end of the bargain. Now it was Lilith’s turn to make good on her promises. “My deal.”_

_“There’s just one more thing that I need you to do for me before that can be taken care of,” Lilith said. She had moved so that her heals were planted on the toes of Crowley’s shoes, increasing her diminutive height by about an inch. Still holding the other demon’s hand, she leaned back against Crowley’s knees and maneuvered his arm so that it was lightly encircling her neck. Crowley looked down at her serenely._

_“What?” Bela gasped, unable to keep the shrillness of her desperation out of her tone. The world around her seemed to tilt off of its axis as Lilith’s words truly sank in._

_“You see, I’ve discovered that the colt never really was a problem. Sam is. Kill him and your soul goes free.”_

 

Bobby put the novel down in disgust. He was having a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that, had they just taken some time out to really read Chuck’s work, they could’ve known where to start looking for the colt near on seven months back.

“So what do you think?” Sam asked, his tone cautious. 

Bobby ignored the question and turned to Dean. The older Winchester looked only slightly less haggard than the last time they’d seen each other. Although, Bobby could see a touch of that old spark back in his eyes. It wasn’t at nearly the level it had once been, but Bobby wasn’t about to complain about that. Whatever might have happened at that convention, Dean seemed to’ve found some new meaning in his work. “Castiel confirmed that this demon guy exists?” 

“Yeah. I’ve got him doing the bloodhound bit even as we speak,” Dean replied, then poured two fingers worth of Scotch out of a bottle that Bobby had been nursing for the past week. Unlike the last time Bobby had seen Dean drinking, the younger man sipped his drink rather than slung it all back in a single go. Even more to the point, this time it didn’t appear as though he was using the alcohol as a crutch against his building depression. “What do you think we’ll be able to dig up about this Crowley guy?”

“Well, Chuck was pretty vague on his description. But, I think that I might have an idea about who his meatsuit used to be.” He spun his wheel chair around so that he could reach into the back of a nearby bookshelf. From the pages of an old journal, he took out a worn photograph. In it was the image of a sour faced, shabbily dressed, middle-aged man standing stiffly next to a gorgeous cocoa skinned teenaged girl. The girl looked relaxed and happy with an infant of about six months resting on her hip. “When I first sent out my feelers for help with killing the devil, I tried to find Bernard Crowley. I knew him way back. Back before I even knew about the things that go bump in the night.”

“What, you think that it might be him?” Sam asked.

“Could be.” Bobby shrugged. “He was a watcher. He would train others and provided them information on the things that they would hunt. A lot like I do now and he was one of the best. He dropped off the face of the planet about thirty years back, give’r take. I didn’t even know until I tried to get in contact with him back in September. He also happens to have the same name that this demon’s been using.” 

Dean walked around Bobby’s desk and pulled his old chair foreword so that he could sit in it with his feet up on the edge of the desk. In an almost blasé tone, he asked, “Really, ‘a watcher?’ Do you think that he could’ve chosen a more passive aggressive title for himself?”

“That’s just what hunters are called over in the UK and Europe. They’re organized with legitimate businesses all around the world. As I understand it, they even get paid to do the job. Back when I knew the human version of Crowley, without the demon cream filling, they had almost unlimited numbers. A few were spared for the States, but only a handful at most. I never really knew why, but suspected it was because of a lack of strictly pagan worship in the area; that used to be where the worst trouble seemed to stem from.” 

Bobby sighed and rolled his chair closer to his desk so that he could swipe Dean’s drink, the bottle was on the other end and too far away. After taking an unhealthy pull from the glass, he went on bitterly, “They’ve protected the world from more craptastic situations than you could ever possibly get yourselves into. Rumour has it that they even managed to destroy a portal out of hell a few years back.”

“Well, great!” Sam exclaimed. “Let’s give them a call. They’re bound to know something about how to help us.”

“I already did!”

Visibly shocked at the vehemence in his father figure’s words, Dean leaned further back in his seat and shared a wide-eyed look with his brother. “Hell, Bobby, tell us how you really feel.”

Bobby glared at him and finished off what little alcohol that remained in the glass. He slammed it down and, in a much more brusque voice than usual, stated, “They got back to me almost two months ago and promised to do some research for us. Can you believe that? Research! The guy I talked to even made claims that one of the reasons why they were too busy was because they were dealing with a dragon infestation in Canada.”

He made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. Finally giving in, he wheeled his chair over so that he could retrieve the bottle from the other end of the desk. “Everyone knows that what few dragons that’re left don’t nest in the north! They prefer warm climates.” He punctuated the end of his sentence by taking a good, long swig out of the bottle. 

“Okay,” Sam said into the uncomfortable silence that followed. He and Dean shared yet another look. Sam was clearly at a loss as to what he should say, for once in his life.

“So we know that the poor schmuck that’s being possessed isn’t exactly a schmuck. Do we know anything about the demon that’s doing the possessing?” Dean asked, returning to their previous conversation. Though he’d skimmed over one or two of the books when they’d first met Chuck, he’d refused to read a single page since attending the convention. Bobby couldn’t help but think that it had something to do with the homoerotic subtext of the Supernatural books that Sam had mentioned. 

“No,” Sam stated. He spared a worried look for Bobby before continuing. “There’s even less detail about him than there is about his meatsuit. Becky even suggested that Crowley might have been Lilith’s second in command. Which would make him king of the crossroads now that she’s dead.”

“Then I think we should bring in some help.” Dean straightened in his seat. “Call in some favours. Get some other hunters to go in with us.”

“What favours?” Bobby asked, hating just how defeated his voice sounded. He couldn’t help it though; he’d never come across quite so many brick walls as he had in the past two months. It didn't matter that they'd figured out where the colt was. “I don’t know about you boys, but I’m all tapped out of favours. In fact, I’m pretty far into the red on the owing side of the column. And, last I checked, all the hunters you two know are gunning for your blood.”

For a long time the three of them sat in a depressed silence. That was, until Sam, on the verge of giving another speech on exactly how sorry he was to’ve caused the situation that they were in, caught sight of a picture over Bobby’s mantle. Brightening, he said, “Well, then let’s call in some family.”

Bobby didn't bother looking up as he, almost absently, remarked, “Who? Not to offend or anything, but isn’t your entire family dead?”

“You don’t have to be blood to be family,” Sam corrected. “You’re more than enough proof of that, Bobby. Ellen and Jo will come.”


	4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four  
Setting: Halfway through Act One of the events in “Abandon All Hope” (05.10) of Supernatural, post “Chosen” (07.22) of Buffy  
Author’s Note: I’ve bent the way things were on the show for this chapter so as to give Xander a friendly face when he gets to Sioux Falls.  
Another Author’s Note: Corrections made with thanks to dreameralways for the heads up. My apologies for posting this a day late.

 

Xander sat back in his seat and sighed as he listened to the driver that Giles had provided him chattering away up in the front of the car. As glad as he was to put off his annual preChristmas visit with the family, he wasn't sure if he was happy with having to diffuse whatever situation was going on in this Podunk little town of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. None of the locals were likely to take him seriously, especially as they seemed to be utterly convinced that the world was going to end. In fact, if what Giles had said was true, his main contact and the man Xander was on his way to see, Bobby Singer, was adamant that it was going to be Hell on Earth. 

The thing was, according to Giles and a superior team of expert researchers, none of the events that Mr Singer had reported were apocalyptic in nature. Sure the weather was a little on the weird side, what with the localized freezing and hurricanes over landlocked States, but those were more than likely due to global climate change. They were too wide spread to pertain to any particular apocalypse. And the increased number of missing persons, despite the odd circumstances, could be attributed to a sudden population boom and lack of available, decent paying jobs. 

Plus there were none of the staple events that coincided with an apocalypse. Earthquakes were at an all time low and the few that were shaking the earth were barely even stirring the topsoil. Newt movement had been restricted to what was necessary to survive and animal migration was at the standard norm. Most noticeably, no unexplainable mass murders had taken place. That bombing down in Maryland aside, life was continuing on at its usual pace. So everyone at HQ had agreed that Singer could wait until Xander had the opportunity to take a couple weeks off for a vacation Stateside. Everyone, of course, but Xander himself. Although, while Xander hadn't been convinced by Giles's rebuttal of Singer's apocalypse, he'd also agreed that it wasn't the time to panic either. 

When the Scoobies had buried Sunnydale and Angel had blown up Wolfram and Hart, it’d seemed to put a lid on almost all of the supernatural activity in the States. There were no known prophecies in the works concerning the country in question -- though they were constantly on the lookout. The hellmouth in Cleveland was so immature in its development that it hadn't even spat out a single master vampire yet. So far, the worst it’d managed had been a particularly nasty form of the aspect of the demon curse. The US was probably the safest place in the world, given the number of apocalypses waiting to be dealt with over in Eurasia. In fact, the Western Hemisphere had been so quiet in recent years that they only had active slayers in L.A. and Peru. 

As for the the apocalypses on the other side of the world, Giles had assured him while he'd still been in flight that they were under control. The man had even gone so far as to call in every single available Slayer to help diffuse the varied situations breaking out over Europe. Currently, about seventy-five percent of the Slayer population were stationed along the Russian border waiting to intervene. The training homes in the area -- some that he’d even helped establish -- were full past bursting in most cases. 

"So, Xander, what brings you to Sioux Falls?" his driver, Gary, asked over his shoulder. For the third time that night, Xander was treated to the sight of the young man’s solid gold optical lenses textured like a snake’s skin when his eyes shifted to the rearview mirror. 

Xander took a deep breath and leaned forward in his seat. "There's a local that called a couple months back. He thinks the world is about to end. I'm supposed to calm him down, tell him that everything's okay."

Up front, Gary grinned up at the mirror and said, "Wow, there's a local around here that's on the lookout for the end of the world? Most of them wouldn't believe in vampires if one came up and bit them on the neck. I tell them that I've got contacts in and that my skin is like this," keeping his eyes on the darkly shadowed road, he lifted a single glossy hand that looked like it was made from the highest quality marble that money could buy in an imitation of a wave, "because of a medical condition and they all buy it. They see my mom and some of them even ask if there's any way they could help us with our medical bills."

"Yeah. And, yet, this Singer guy knows about not only us watchers, but what it is we really do. Why do you suppose that is?" Xander asked curiously.

"Couldn't tell you. My mom and me just moved here a few weeks ago. Rumour mill around town says that Singer's the town drunk, though," he replied as he pulled the car up against the curb and stopped. He turned around in his seat once he'd put the car in park and levelled Xander with his alien gaze. "What I'd like to know is, how come it took you so long to get out here? I thought that you watchers took the threat of apocalypse very seriously."

"We do," Xander offered, though his response was half hearted. He had a funny feeling that he should have jumped on a plane the moment he'd gotten Giles's original message. If only he hadn't been in the sticks of Africa dealing with a young slayer who'd been on the verge of an arranged marriage to a demon three hundred times her age. "Have you noticed anything apocalyptic happening in the area?"

"Well, no," Gary said with a shrug. "But you know that us Rig-arum don't like to get involved in the messy stuff. We just like to let the world go on by us. The oceans could be boiling and we wouldn't much care unless we were in the mood for some saltwater fish."

Xander nodded in understanding before he stepped out onto the sidewalk wearily. 

Gary rolled down the automatic window of the passenger side door and took in the sight of their destination. The kid was young enough to still be living with his mom, in his early twenties by the looks of it -- how sad was it that early twenties seemed young to Xander? He was still two years shy of thirty himself -- and had eagerly narrated their passage through town. Now, he shifted uneasily in his seat. “Are you sure that you want to go in there?”

It was a legitimate question, Xander presumed. Singer Salvage Yard was most definitely not the most inviting place at first glance. What Gary’d failed to notice, though, was the extensive security system in place. There were heavy duty security lights placed at ten foot intervals with motion sensors lining the outer fence. A fence that was reinforced with some kind of magical protection if the amulet that the Devon Coven had given him was any indication. Xander was pretty sure the same kind of security continued all the way to the house nestled somewhere at the back of the property.

He leaned back into the car to reach for his bags. As he did, Gary once again turned in his seat to be in a better position to watch him. With quick efficiency, learned from his extensive use of cabs since loosing his eye, he got everything together and withdrew.

“If you want, I could wait for you here. Make sure that you get in all right,” Gary offered.

Xander stepped back up onto the curb and shouldered his backpack. The duffle he immediately transferred to his left hand. If pressed, he could use his left to defend himself, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to voluntarily remove his right hand from action. This move caused his too long hair to fall into his remaining eye and he awkwardly reached up to shove it back. He had been putting off getting a cut for no other reason than he couldn’t be bothered to get it done. It was okay, though, as most of the girls at the training home he’d stopped at in Liberia before catching a flight back to the States had claimed that the long hair suited him.

“Don’t worry about it, Gar,” he offered with a grin, not sure if it would cover up exactly how bone tired he was. He started towards the menacing darkness laid out before him and offered over his shoulder, “I’ll be fine.”

When he heard Gary’s car pull away from the curb, he picked up his pace. With each step, a new security light kicked on, illuminating a swath of the path before him. Xander couldn’t help thinking that making a hasty but quiet exit would be nearly as difficult as it would be for someone to sneak up to the place.

He was halfway up the front step when the sound of a shotgun being cocked stopped him dead -- figuratively, of course. He swallowed hard, his mouth having gone instantly dry and dropped the duffle. The backpack hooked over his shoulder stayed where it was as he raised both his hands up so that they were level with his shoulders in the universal sign of surrender.

Footsteps approached him from his left but, whoever it was, stayed in his blind spot. In front of him, the front door of the house that he had been making his way towards opened. A man close to Giles’ age, if not a few years older, wheeled himself forward. There was a six-shooter lying in plain sight across his blanketed knees.

“You got about 30 seconds to tell us just what, exactly, you’re doin’ here,” a gravelly, though distinctly feminine voice purred behind his left ear.

After a moment of shock, Xander couldn’t help but ask, “Ellen, is that you?”

The man in front of him let his eyes go wide in surprise. He clearly hadn’t expected that kind of a response from Xander. His hands shifted from the wheels of his chair to the gun in his lap. He didn’t point it at Xander, but he kept a finger on both the trigger and hammer, clearly ready to use it at a moments notice.

A hand fell on Xander’s left shoulder and he was spun around none too gently. When he got his feet firmly planted once again, having fallen off of the porch step, he was faced with none other than the same woman who had given him a job in Oxnard. Grinning, Xander relaxed minutely, still aware of both the gun at his back and the one in Ellen’s hands. “It’s been forever, hasn’t it?”

Ellen frowned at him in confusion. There were a few new wrinkles lining her face, mostly around her eyes shaped in a way that suggested laugh lines, but otherwise she was completely unchanged. The past ten years had most definitely been kinder on her than they had been on Xander. “Do I know you?”

Xander’s grin widened, though he made sure that he maintained his submissive posture. His right arm was beginning to ache where a three-day-old wound still sported stitches on the underside of his bicep leading into his armpit. “Oxnard, summer of ’99?”

“Xander?” she finally asked. She loosened the grip she had on her twelve-gauge. Slowly, the shadow of a smile started to form on her lips and she took half a step closer to him as she lowered the barrel of her gun. “Xander Harris?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, jeezuhz, Boy. You scared the ever liven daylights outta me!” she transferred the shotgun to her right hand and used her left to drag Xander into a hug. She was still tense, obviously more than a little bit curious as to why they were running into each other again in the wee hours of the morning and on the opposite side of the country. “What the hell’re you doin’ here?”

“Apparently there’s some people in the area that need some help in my area of expertise.” Xander shifted the strap of his pack higher up on his shoulder then tucked the fingers of both his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He hated to be at such a disadvantage, but he was also the only person present without a gun and he wasn’t about to get himself shot. As he did this, he also rocked back on his heels so that he could once again see the man holding the peashooter on the front porch.

Ellen shared a look with wheelchair-guy. "And exactly what kind of expertise would that be?"

Xander narrowed his eyes at her briefly before he gave a one armed shrug, not wanting to risk loosing his bag. While he had several weapons hidden all over his person, the bag he held had water, food, and a change of clothes in it. Not to mention that 'In Case of Emergency' bomb that Willow'd made for him last year. 

"Oh, you know," he hedged. "Just a little bit of this and that. I'm actually looking for Bobby Singer. I thought that this was his place."

"It is," grumpy, up on the porch interjected, speaking for the first time.

“Wait,” Ellen said, her voice taking on that hard tone she had first used on him. “When we got in a few hours ago, there was a voicemail from a representative of the United Coalition telling us to expect the arrival of an experienced watcher. That wouldn’t happen to be you, would it?”

Taken off guard by the abrupt question, Xander simply gaped at her for a moment. When he managed to recover his composure, he simply said, “Well, yeah.”

“And just how long have you been tangled up in the supernatural world?”

Resisting the urge to quail under her intense scrutiny, he returned the question in kind. When him words were met with a blank, expectant stare, he stated blandly, “Since about three years before we met. And now that you know, I can finally say: your bar was a hotbed of supernatural activity. I’d never seen so many creatures of the night populating a single area outside of my high school. I think I spent more time clearing out the back alley than I did washing the dishes.”

“Well, that’s all fine and dandy,” wheelchair-guy — apparently this was Bobby Singer — stated gruffly. He spun his chair around and called over his shoulder, “Now, hows about we all get inside before we freeze our asses off?”


	5. Chapter Five

Setting: Half way through the events of Act One in “Abandon All Hope” (05.10) of Supernatural, post “Chosen” (07.22) of Buffy  
Author’s Note: When I think of Xander, I remember him as he was in Season Three of Buffy minus his left eye and plus a little muscle definition. That’s just the way that my mind works.

 

Dean studied the stranger with a critical eye. Ellen had given them a rundown of what she knew about him when they'd first gotten in. It hadn't been all that much. He really didn’t feel comfortable with him there, but both Bobby and Ellen had vouched for the guy. When that hadn't been enough to convince him, Bobby had even preformed his standard holy water test for a second time in an effort to placate him. Despite making a face at the taste of the room temperature and probably stale water that Bobby poured into a clear glass so that they could all be sure that the liquid actually touched the man’s lips, he hadn't had any other adverse reaction. And there was one other thing -- what the hell kind of a name was Xander anyways?

The Hunter was broad shouldered and sported a lean, well-muscled frame. Even taking all of that into consideration, he still looked down right puny standing next to Sam. His body language screamed practiced ease, but everything else about him contradicted this. Despite his efforts to appear at a disadvantage, he was clearly prepared to defend himself if necessary. Even outnumbered like he was. And, though he clearly wasn't trying, he exuded a calm sort of confidence that reminded Dean sorely of his dad.

And Dean really didn’t like the way that the guy looked at Jo. 

“So, where are you from?” he finally asked in an attempt to keep himself from shooting the shaggy haired Hunter. 

Seriously, the guy’s hair was longer than Sammy’s. And that was saying a lot considering just how long Sammy’d been keeping his. Xander probably kept it that length in an effort to disguise his eye patch, but all it did was make him appear that much more sinister and deadly, especially when paired with the scruffy three days beard he had going. He looked like he'd stepped directly out of an add straight from Evil Villains Quarterly.

Xander turned to face him with a grin. “Sunnydale, California.”

“That's the place that sunk into a hole in the ground six years ago,” Jo offered brightly. She’d clearly sensed Dean's unease and was milking it for all it was worth. There was some kind of history between the two of them and Dean wasn't all that sure he wanted to know all of the nitty-gritty details.

“One in the same,” Xander confirmed. He made his way over to her and took away the whetstone that she’d been using. In its place, he offered her one that he took out of a pouch that’d been in his right hand pocket. “I guarantee that this will give you a sharper edge than you’ve ever had before.”

“I know that you went back to Sunnydale after that summer you spent working for my mom. Did you manage to get out ahead of the collapsed?” Jo asked curiously. She shifted so that she could continue sharpening her blade without elbowing Xander. The way that she watched his face while she waited for her answer grated on Dean’s nerves. “What about the riots in LA afterward, where were you then?”

“I remember that. I wrote a term paper on it my last year at Stanford,” Sam said. He sat down at the table next to Ellen, placing his freshly cleaned and reassembled Taurus within easy reach of his right hand. To his left was an assortment of blades that included Ruby’s demon killing knife. “There was an uproar about the poor city planning. The whole town was built over a network of caves and tunnels, the ceilings of which couldn’t hold the weight. The citizens tried to sue the governing body and when they lost, they rioted.”

“Got it in one,” Xander stated. His smile was much more forced than before and his remaining eye had gone flat. “The only thing that the papers left out was that the town collapsed because me and mine shut down the local hellmouth.”

Dean got the feeling that the only reason Xander had volunteered the information was because he felt that the others wouldn’t leave it alone until they got the answers they wanted. He was doing everything he could to ensure that they didn’t recognize his skill. The man hadn’t done a single thing to provoke a confrontation with any of them. He'd even gone so far as to put himself at a disadvantage. The only things that he'd had with him that might have contained any weapons -- a well-worn backpack and an incredibly dusty duffle -- he’d left on the floor of Bobby's library when everyone had gone into the kitchen. He had done so even after seeing the arsenal Dean and Sam had brought in with them as well as the array of weaponry Ellen and Bobby'd laid out on the table and across the counters in preparation for the coming battle. After casing the room, noticing and acknowledging Jo with a too friendly grin, he'd moved to stand next to the most physically imposing person in the group -- Sam. 

"I've not heard that term before," Ellen said. Unlike Dean, her tone wasn’t that of an interrogator’s. She sounded more like she wanted to catch up with an old friend than anything else. "What's a hellmouth, exactly?"

"It's similar to a Devil's Gate," Bobby volunteered, "but it's a whole hell've a lot more powerful and its door swings both ways."

Sam cocked an eyebrow at that. "How do you mean powerful? A Devil's Gate is just a doorway."

“Why do you think that old Samuel Colt went to so much trouble locking up that one in Wyoming?” Bobby asked in a slightly facetious tone. "It's not like hell is right here and opening a door to it is like opening a door to another room. Hell is in another reality, another dimension. We all know that." 

He sent a guarded look in Dean’s direction, but he chose to ignore it. "Not only does time work differently there, but the atmosphere itself is made up of stuff that we've never even seen before. That's why, when a demon takes possession of a human host, it not only leaves behind a sulphuric residue whenever it exerts itself, it also develops that telltale allergy to holy water.

"A door out of hell takes so much energy that it pollutes the area around it. That's why they tend to be found in abandoned places or places that humans find repellant. Cemeteries, old factories, rundown carnivals -- places like that. A hellmouth not only needs to be created by an exponential amount of energy, once it's fully formed, it also produces energy. Not the same kind as a Gate, but not anything good either." Bobby paused, uneasily using his hands to spin the wheels of his chair back and forth alternately. Dean couldn't help but think that the way this caused the chair to shift in one spot seemed a lot like how anyone else might pace. "The energy produced is like a Siren call to anything evil. They flock to it and try their damn'dest to get in while the demons on the other side do everything in their power to get out."

"Over the years since the hellmouth first manifested, the hundreds of evil things coming and going tunnelled underneath almost every square foot of the town. A few did it looking for buried treasure, others did it in an effort to survive, more just because they could and that was their nature. Then there was all of the earthquakes. Each earthquake shifted things around to make new caverns. I won’t even get into all the digging that the US military was doing. In the end, the only thing keeping Sunnydale above sea level was the power emanating from the hellmouth. So, when we took the hellmouth down, the town went with it," Xander stated blandly.

“I still can’t believe it. That was your group?” Bobby asked, wheeling his chair closer as he spoke with earnest.

Xander reached into the inside, breast pocket of his jacket and Dean tensed, immediately palming his handgun. The Desert Eagle fit perfectly in the palm of his hand and he was reluctant to let it go when all that the other man produced was a battered leather wallet. He flipped it open and handed it to Bobby, making sure not to get too close or to cut himself off from an easy escape. He’d also positioned himself so that the only thing in his blind spot was the side of Bobby’s pantry. This was all done with an unconsciousness that spoke of a lifetime of practice.

“Jeezuhz,” Bobby exclaimed, dragging out the word into three syllables. From where he was standing, Dean could only just make out the tattered Polaroid that Xander had flipped to. It was of the man in question along with a group of others -- mostly women -- that looked like they'd just walked off the battlefield. Behind them stood the charred remains of a sign that displayed the general number of the population and the number of miles remaining before entering the city -- the 'dale' part of Sunnydale had been crossed out and 'hell' painted in its place -- and an immense, black expanse that was probably the sinkhole that went out to the very edge of the photo where there barest hint of a horizon could be seen. After a long minute, he finally handed the wallet back. He looked up at the hunter with wide eyes and a dazed expression. “It's a lake now. Filled in practically over night.”

Xander grinned. "I know. A friend of mine helped with that. We didn't want anyone digging around in the pit. There's always a chance that the Sunnydale hellmouth could be reopened and we figured that it just might be harder to do with it being in the centre of a large body of water."

"Right, right," Bobby muttered. 

"After that, we packed our bags and went to London to rebuild," Xander explained. 

"Well, that's all very interesting," Dean stated, finally growing tired of the back story. He reached behind him and withdrew the pistol that'd been sitting at the small of his back since he'd gotten out of his car. The colt looked like it had just been cleaned despite the fact that Crowley had used it to dispatch two demons a handful of hours earlier. He took a moment to study the side of it before he spun it around his index finger and then placed it in the centre of Bobby's kitchen table. "But I'd much rather talk about our plan for tomorrow night."

A look of confusion crossed Xander's face as he took in the excitement coming from the people around him. His eyes fell to the colt briefly before he looked back up at Dean. "What happens then?"

"That's when we take down the devil."

Xander blinked at him. "The devil."

"Yeah," Dean replied. He tucked his hands into his front pockets and resumed his study of the younger hunter. "You know, Lucifer: King of the bottomless pit? The big head honcho of that balmy little vacation spot that we all call hell. Satan. Don't you know anything about the apocalypse that you came here to help us stop?"

"I know that you've been dealing with some bad weather and missing persons, but nobody said anything about the devil," Xander stated. He turned to Bobby and asked, "You have proof that the devil is out and getting his coffee at Starbucks?"

Bobby glanced first at Dean and then to Sam and Ellen. Into the uneasy silence that had fallen, he finally said, "Yeah, I've got some pretty decent proof."

"Then why the hell didn't you tell us!" Xander exclaimed. Though he'd barely moved a muscle, he was practically vibrating with tension. "Do you really think that we would've waited two months to come down here if we'd known that the devil had decided to come out for a jaunt around town?"

"I did," Bobby replied. "When I spoke with Rupert Giles back in September, I told him that I was dealing with hell on Earth. He said that it wasn’t that big of a deal and he'd get some people to do some research."

Xander sighed and looked down at the chipped linoleum at his feet. In nearly a whisper, he said. "There's a world of difference between 'hell on Earth' and the devil. I partied up my prom while hell walked the Earth; it's not that big of a deal. Hell, I even spent my nights dealing with vampires and a cursed varsity jacket that made people fall in love with whoever wore it at the same time the First Evil was plotting ways to have my eye plucked out of my head. The devil is a whole other can of worms. And you want to go after him in, well, it’s after midnight now. There's not even enough time for Willow to whip up a teleportation spell so that we could have some backup. The closest fully trained Slayer that could be shipped here is an eighteen-hour flight away. Why tomorrow?"

"Because we know where he's going to be," Sam replied. He was on the verge of asking a question when Xander interrupted him.

"So? You know where he is. Okay, fine, there can’t be a lot of weapons out there that’ll be effective against the devil. Exactly how do you plan on taking him down?"

Dean looked down at the colt, then back up at Xander. "With that."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Organizing his arrival with the utmost precision, Castiel entered Bobby's home still cloaked from human sight. He arrived in a corner of the kitchen that was always left bare in time to see Dean's reaction to the newcomer. When he'd first caught on to Bobby's intention to call the watchers, it'd already been too late for him to intervene. He'd been tempted to go back through time to prevent the event from ever occurring, but had been unwilling to drain his reserves on such a frivolous use of power. There was no telling if the watchers' involvement would be detrimental or not. He had so little "angel juice" left, as Dean liked to refer to it, that he knew he should wait to see how events would unfold.

Looking back through history, whenever a Slayer or her watcher got involved things never went according to plan. People died who were never meant to die and those meant to die managed to keep on living. Especially in this particular watcher's case. His Slayer should've been dead a dozen times over and, yet, his presence alone had prevented that in all but one situation. A situation that should have meant the death of many save the Slayer.

Flexing his power just enough so that no one felt the urge to come near his chosen spot, Castiel perched on the edge of a high stool that had last been used by Bobby's late wife. His eyes fell on Xander as the watcher paced the kitchen while the Winchesters told him of their general plan to kill the devil. No one knew for sure exactly what to make of Alexander Harris was. Before he'd met Buffy, his destiny had been to die on the eve of his graduation saving the life of his lover. When he'd managed to make it past that, he was meant to've fallen pray to a djinn on his way through L.A. Needless to say, he'd survived more than his fair share of prophecy. Upon making it past his twenty-first birthday, it'd been decided by those many times Castiel’s superior that his destiny was to be given over to chance.

It seemed that the moment a decision was made with regard to Xander Harris or anyone he valued, he went out of his way to ensure that nothing grievous happened. In the past year alone, the man had thwarted six prophecies that should have been unshakable. Castiel had no way of knowing why this was. He'd even gone to his brother and sister Angels in hopes of getting answers in the intervening months since Bobby'd first drawn the watchers' attentions. Surprisingly, Zachariah'd been the only one willing and able to provide him with any kind of reasonable insight.

He'd taken Castiel to witness the raw power that Buffy Summers and her successors possessed and said, "The Slayer is a creature not of God or man. She is an abomination forged out of a crucible crafted using the essence of a true-blooded demon. Because of this she is useful, though she cannot be trusted to stay on the righteous path. Too many have succumbed to their dark nature. The watcher that guides her is no better. He will do whatever he thinks necessary to ensure that only the good he believes in triumphs. They can be allies in times of great need, but should any other avenue be available, one must be sure that it is tested first."

"I have always known that. But what of Harris?" he replied. He digested the women's power with the detached manner that only an angel could achieve, and then shifted his position on the Earth -- bringing Zachariah with him. Xander had stood in the center of what'd looked like endless desert. At his side stood a girl that could not've been more than twelve years old. She had only come into her Slayer heritage three months prior.

"I have often wondered that myself."

He turned to Zachariah with his head cocked ever so slightly to the left. Though Castiel was unable to read the other angel’s mind or aura, the move was a habit that he'd not been unable to break. The more time he spent with his human charges and less with his angel brethren, the more he lost his distance from his vessel’s human nature. He was slowly beginning to learn what it felt like to be hungry and tired and sore for the first time in his existence. He was developing more human habits and vices every day.

Zachariah smiled sardonically at him. “I know that this might be hard for you to understand, but Harris is worse than the Winchester boys when it comes to falling in line. We’ve spoken to him numerous times about sticking to the path that we’ve set for him. Twice I’ve come down myself and scrubbed him memory and programmed him to do as he was prophesied to. Both times, he’s somehow managed to defy that programming. Raphael has intervened a time or two as well. Regardless of all that, Harris remains an enigma. And… we cannot seem to unravel his blood line either."

He clasped his hands behind his back and leveled Castiel with that arrogant gaze of his. How he managed to mimic the human condition so well without losing his grasp of his grace and angelic power had been a subject of discussion among other angels for centuries. "And he will be joining your favourite humans in battle shortly, too. I don't suppose you would tell me where they might be, would you?"

Castiel returned his attention to the humans in question. Dean's state of mind had been greatly restored by the events that had taken place at Pineview Hotel and with the retrieval of the colt. And, thanks to the fact that Sam was free and clear of demon blood, he could make out that the younger Winchester was also feeling optimistic about their coming battle. Bobby, Ellen and Jo's thoughts were less visible to him. He was using his best efforts to reserve his powers for when it was absolutely necessary so that he would have every resource available to him when they were to face the devil. To see into the minds of people he'd never used his powers on in the past would take too much out of him. He could read their auras though. Bobby's was marred by his depression while Ellen's was lit with her eagerness to do battle. As always, Jo's was highlighted by her healthy sexuality, but other than that she was almost a mirror of her mother.

Xander was no longer in the room so Castiel rose from his seat to stand next to Dean and revealed himself to the humans. It took practically no power at all to mask himself from human eyes, as most were unwilling to see anything but what they expected. Making himself visible took more power. A gust of wind emanated from his skin and the sound like the rusting of a bird's feathers could be heard as he ensured that his otherworldly light remained hidden from view. "Congratulations for retrieving the colt. I thought that Crowley would have made things much harder for you."

"Yeah, well, he was expecting us," Dean stated after swearing violently at him. "Apparently, he's rooting for us to win this one."

"I know. I also know that we should leave Xander behind when we go to Carthage," he stated, hoping that -- for once -- Dean might just accept what he had said and agree. 

"You're kidding, right?" Sam asked. He jumped from his seat and pointed towards the stairs. At the edge of his human ears, Castiel could just make out the sound of a shower running. "The man flew in from Africa of all places just so that he could help us. It's not his fault that he didn't know what we've been dealing with! How could we possibly turn him away now?"

Dean clasped his hands behind the back of his head and looked up at the ceiling. In a tone that demanded answers, he said, "Look, Cass, you've got to have a pretty good reason for not wanting him around. Right now, we need all the help that we can get. Even if all Xander is good for is tripping up a few of old Lucifer's lackeys before they can kill us, it's better than nothing."

Castiel hesitated. His suspicions were unfounded and Dean was right in saying that they were going to need all of the help that they could get. In the end, he settled with saying, "I do not believe that we can trust him."

As expected, Dean just rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to Bobby. "We should try and plan out as much as we can in advance. Every possible inevitability that we can think of needs to be considered."

Castiel settled into one of the kitchen chairs as the others followed Bobby into the library. They were all speaking with much excitement at the prospect of finally going head to head with the devil. All he could think was that they were all very foolish. They were all going to die. Should any of them escape with their lives, let alone in relatively good health, he would be more than surprised. And the likelihood of God intervening on their behalves for a second time was about as likely as gravity ceasing to exist.

He was so distracted by his dark thoughts that he was actually surprised when Xander sat down in the seat opposite him. Unlike the others, he could not even make sense of Xander's aura and the man's thoughts were heavily guarded. And he moved so stealthily that Castiel'd not even been able to hear him coming towards him. The man draped a damp towel over the back of the chair next to him and shoved back the bangs of his still wet hair with his other hand. The band of his eye patch made the back of his hair stick up a little bit, but otherwise he looked the same as he had in Africa -- only much cleaner.

He spent a long few minutes studying the others in the library. Finally Castiel turned his own attention back to the group. Bobby had one of his many versions of the bible open to the last page of Revelations with the book propped up so that Castiel could see it from where he was sitting. Sam was talking animatedly, but so low that he couldn't hear what was being said. If he had really wanted to, he could use his powers to listen in, but it would be easier for him to simply stand and join them. The only thing keeping him from doing so was Xander's presence. He was hoping that the human might deign to let him in on what it was he was thinking.

It was only because he had all of his human senses stretched to the limit that he was able to tell that Xander was on the verge of speaking. He turned to face the human and was almost shocked when his gaze cut off whatever he'd been about to say. Xander stopped, closed his mouth and swallowed audibly. It was then that Castiel realized that Xander probably had no more idea of what made him so special than any of the rest of them. Had he even the slightest guess regarding his true heritage, the heritage that Castiel was beginning to suspect the truth of, having the eyes of an angel fall on him would not've stopped him from doing most anything. 

Xander visibly re-gathered his thoughts before finally saying, "So, tell me about this colt that everyone is so revved up about. The Winchesters almost act like it's made of gold."

Castiel considered this. Of its only volition, his head tipped to the side and his brow furrowed. Despite doing so, the man's aura remained a mass of tangled colours that he could not pull apart. The confusion this caused almost over shone the growing uneasiness that seemed to be emanating from the depths of his stomach. Of all the things that Xander could have asked him, this was the last that he'd expected. He turned to look back at the others so that he could be sure they were suitably distracted before he gave an answer. "The colt is a very special weapon. Samuel Colt himself forged it under the light of Haley’s Comet. It is the only known weapon fabricated by man that can kill a demon."

Xander settled back into his chair. And though his eyes were averted, Castiel could feel the man's gaze on him. It seemed that, with every passing breath he took while watching him, Xander relaxed more and more. The nervous energy, the only emotion Castiel could be sure Xander was feeling, seemed to slowly drain away the longer he spent watching him. Finally, almost lethargically, he asked, "And you guys want to use it to kill the devil?"

"That is the basis of Sam and Dean's plan, yes," Castiel replied, grateful for having been asked a question to which he knew the answer. Every time that Xander spoke, he feared that he would not be able to provide an appropriate response.

A silence fell between them that Castiel, if pressed, might have described as pleasant. He'd only ever experienced something similar during the days he'd spent luring Raphael out with Dean. The two of them had spent an entire hour in Dean's car traveling without speaking. At the time, Castiel had not felt the need for words and neither did he now. The voices from the other room grew momentarily louder before lapsing back into that low octave that made picking out individual words nearly impossible.

Not feeling the need to be fully present, Castiel set his mind adrift. The other angels on Earth felt no need to mask their discussions from him. They were simply trying to work out the best way for them to bring Sam and Dean back to life when their attempt to kill the devil failed. No one would say why they were so sure that Thursday would end in death, only that it was inevitable. Zachariah was petitioning to have the Winchesters remain in heaven until it was absolutely necessary for them to be returned to Earth. His reasoning being that they could not hide in the kingdom of heaven as they were on Earth. None wanted to go against Zachariah, save Castiel himself. His was the lone voice of defiance. He went with the tactic that, should the Winchesters remain in heaven, they might loose their chances to say yes. Both of them. Unless they continued on their path, the devil might never get his chance at Sam, something that Zachariah needed to have happen if he was going to get the battle that he was rooting for.

He was brought slowly back into human reality when Xander idly asked, "What else do we have?"

Confused by what he meant, Castiel asked, "Excuse me?"

“Do we have any other weapons that can be used against demons? More effectively than as a deterrent?” Xander questioned.

Castiel gave a slow nod of understanding. He turned in his seat so that he faced Xander fully and clasped his hands less than an inch away from the watcher’s. Proximity to the man's skin did not provide any insight to his thought process. In a deep whisper, he said, “We have a knife provided by a demon who called herself Ruby. When used to deliver what would be a killing blow to a human, the knife will also kill the demon that is possessing said person. I know not how it works, but its effectiveness is unquestionable.”

Xander nodded slowly, his brow furrowed by his line of thought -- one that Castiel could not even imagine the beginning of, let alone where it was headed. After about five minutes, he hesitantly said, “Hey, Castiel. I’ve never been much of a bible thumper. What can you tell me about Lucifer?”

“He was one of our Father’s most favoured angels,” Castiel replied. The abrupt subject change had caught him somewhat off guard, but the question was easy for him to answer. “He was strong, beautiful, and he loved our Father with all of his heart and soul. But, when our Father created humans and asked us to bow down to them -- to you -- and to love them, he disobeyed. This resulted in him being cast out of heaven by Michael.”

“Huh,” Xander replied, still clearly deep in thought. Almost absently, he said, “And demons? The kind that they’re used to dealing with anyways?”

“Lucifer’s creations. His proof that humans are fallible and oft corrupt. Even more so that they are corruptible. I believe that he thought if he could show our Father that humans were not worthy of our love then he might have been accepted back into the fold. Instead, Michael was ordered to lock him into a prison held closed by more than six hundred seals. Only sixty-six needed to broken for him to break free.” Castiel was leaning over the table in his earnest by now. He could not help the low, urgent whispering voice that allowed the perfect amount of his fanaticism to show through. Even though he had become a rebel that very nearly equaled Anna's level of defiance, he still loved his family and especially his Father with every fiber of his being. He could still not understand how Lucifer had managed to fall so far from grace, despite his own tendency not to follow orders. 

“Bobby said that there’ve been some skirmishes between angels and that some of you have been dying.” When Castiel confirmed this with a nod, Xander continued in a tone that Castiel had learned to recognize. It was almost identical to the way Dean spoke whenever he was asking a question that he assumed Castiel could not or would not answer. “Then, you must have some kind of weapon.”

“Besides our otherworldly powers, angels carry a short sword,” Castiel stated. He sat back in his chair and broke eye contact so that he could look inside his jacket. With one hand he flashed the pommel of his only physical weapon. In the growing darkness of the kitchen, it gleamed. The energies that it gave off could not be concealed by his weakening powers, even the brief glimpse he had allowed Xander should have left star bursts on the human’s retina. “I have been told that they are forged by God, Himself, and that there is nothing they cannot strike down.”

Xander nodded. “Okay. How many of those do you have?”

“Why?”

“We’re about to go up against the devil. Of all things. I’ve fought against the First Evil, but this kinda feels bigger than that.” He swallowed and ran a hand through his hair again. “I’d feel much better if the angel up our sleeve had every possible advantage.”

Castiel considered Xander’s response thoughtfully. Clearly he was nervous, but not just for the reasons that he'd given. As ill equipped as Castiel was at deciphering human emotion, he could tell that there was something that the watcher was hiding. He had kept things from the Winchesters enough times to recognize the signs. The question was, what was it that Xander thought should have them even more scared than the devil himself?

He stood slowly and straightened the lapels of his jacket. Not wanting to leave anything to chance, he said, “Excuse me.”

Xander blinked up at him. “Where are you going?”

“I agree with you,” he said firmly. The statement was true, but it was not the only reason why he felt the need to leave. There was one last theory he wanted to test before going into battle with the half blind watcher. “If we are to fight against the devil, we should go in with every advantage. I am going to see if I can get some more blades. Just in case.”

He glanced to the Winchesters with little hope that they would have a moment to spare before he left. To his surprise, Dean was watching them intently. The human cocked an eyebrow at him. Castiel nodded at him and the moment Dean’s eyes left him, he took his chance to cloak himself from human sight. When Dean’s eyes returned to the spot that he no longer appeared to be occupying, that familiar look of confusion intermixed with frustration blossomed over his features. 

At his side, Xander asked, “Are you going now, or are you waiting for a cab?”


	7. Chapter 7

Sam popped the cap off a beer and handed it to the stoic man that had somehow managed to capture the hearts of everyone in the house save his brother. Bobby seemed satisfied with the credentials that Xander'd provided at Dean's insistence, claiming them impossible to falsify. He’d been visibly awed by the watcher title that followed Xander's name on the card he'd tucked into his phonebook.

Ellen talked about him like he was her long lost son, though none of her stories had anything to do with hunting. In fact, they'd practically had to drag the story out of the guy. Even then he'd given only the absolute basics surrounding the take down of the Sunnydale hellmouth. None of the minute by minute, bragging details that most hunters would've supplied.

Funniest of all was the easy friendliness between him and Jo and how Dean seemed to be taking it. The easy manner with which they spoke to each other, or simply stood together couldn't be forced. Whenever she was close enough, Jo would touch Xander. Nothing sexual, just a hand on the arm or fingers flipping through his recently cleaned hair or leaning her tiny body against his firmly planted frame. Just enough to make it clear that, even if there'd never been anything going on between the two of them, they were secure enough in their relationship to be okay with that. And it was driving Dean up the walls.

Clearly Dean didn’t like the guy. Especially since he'd spoken with Cass and the angel'd gone running off like a bat outta hell without a word to any of them. Sure Cass never really ever said goodbye, but he'd been getting better about just leaving without an explanation. Although, Dean had eventually relented and said that Cass had made sure to make eye contact with him before flying off. He'd gone on to demand to know why Xander had asked the empty air where Cass had once stood a question. Sam hadn't heard anything and, when questioned about it, Dean had reluctantly reported that he'd not heard anything, only seen Xander's lips moving.

He'd shaken his head and said, "How many times have you talked to Cass after he's flown out?" When Dean's only response had been to give that sullen silence that he'd perfected over the past twenty-five years or so, Sam had known that he'd won the argument.

For his own part, the thing that had won him over had been the way that Xander had excused himself from their planning. He'd say back and just listened as they'd hammered out all the details. Sam respected him for letting them do what they did best without trying to shove his own nose into things. Despite the thirteen years of experience that Ellen had reported he had, he hadn't tried to force his own opinions down their throats. And when they'd about wrapped up their discussion, his only suggestion had been that he should go in flanking either Sam or Dean.

Sam hadn't been impressed when Dean had immediately volunteered himself for the job of babysitting the watcher. He was equally as capable as his brother, if not more so. Sure, he wasn't rocking the demon blood anymore. And he'd taken that short hiatus a couple weeks back, but he'd hunted on his own a hell of a lot more than Dean ever had. He knew how to take care of himself. If Dean thought that he was good enough to go up to the devil with nothing more than a gun in one hand and Ruby's knife in another, he didn't see why he couldn't watch out for Xander while they made their approach.

Sam sipped at his beer as he let his gaze sweep across the others. He'd put himself into the perfect position so that he could see pretty much the whole of Bobby's ground floor save for the hallway. Bobby was at his desk, buried up to his ears in books and scrolls and prophecies. He was determined to figure out exactly why Lucifer had decided to set up shop in Carthage, of all places. In the kitchen, Dean was trying to match Ellen shot for shot while Jo looked on with a wry grin on her lips. He could already see that Dean was starting to fall behind, but that probably had more to do with the looks that he'd been darting at Jo for the past hour than his tolerance to the alcohol.

Turning his attention back to his companion, Sam couldn't help but notice that Xander had attempted to place himself in the most vulnerable position possible. Until Sam had joined him, his back had been to everyone save Bobby with his right shoulder resting against the window frame so that any one of them could've snuck up using his blind spot as an advantage. He'd even jumped a little when Sam had come into his field of view. Sam wasn't falling for it for a second. Xander was only acting the putz for the benefit of his audience, hoping to lower their expectations of his abilities. His every fluid movement gave away his true soldier status though. Sam had noticed and recognized the signs because he'd spent years doing the exact same thing when he'd gone off to college.

Wanting to open a dialogue between them, but not wanting to put the other man on the defensive, Sam settled on the first subject that came to mind. "So, where'd Cass fly off to that's had him gone for so long?"

“He’s on a secret mission through uncharted space.”

Sam snorted at that. "Seriously."

Xander shrugged as he picked at the label on his beer. He held the bottle between both his hands and watched the liquid sloshing back and forth with the air of a person that was trying to make up his mind. Sam wasn't one hundred percent sure, but he thought that he recognized the look. He'd worn a version of it himself a time or two since he'd gotten his supernatural detox.

"I don't really know," Xander finally settled on. In a tone that was slightly stunned, he continued, "He said that he was going to see if he could get more of those angel blades."

"Having a hard time with that whole 'angels are real' concept?" he asked, a grin tugging at his lips.

"Not so much that as the 'angels are real and they've got horrible interpersonal skills.' If I'd met Castiel without knowing what he was, I would've suspected him to be something that had just crawled out from under a rock for the first time in centuries. The guy doesn't even know how to use contractions." Xander brought a hand up to run it through his hair as a sardonic smile broke across his face. "Though, he's kinda peaceful. Easy to sit with."

"You sure made a beeline for him when you first saw him," Sam commented.

Xander shook his head. "Well, I asked Ellen who he was when she came upstairs to take out my stitches. It's not everyday that I see Mr Trench Coat drop in out of nowhere, you know? I figured that she would be able to give me the low down. Once I knew what he was, I just had to meet him. Though I never got the chance to play the part of the over enthusiastic fangirl."

Sam took another sip of his beer and watched as Xander followed the motion closely with his remaining eye. The smaller man looked at the bottle in his own hands for a long time before, with a sigh, he set it on the window ledge. This was all that Sam'd needed to see to confirm his suspicions. The thought stuck with him for only a moment before he finally digested what Xander had said.

"Hold on a minute. Cass didn't show until after you went upstairs," he stated, his voice going hard. Slowly, a thread of doubt crept into his mind. Maybe Xander'd been lying to all of them from the beginning. How hard would it be for someone to fake surprise at hearing that the devil'd been let out of hell? Xander was crap at hiding just how well trained he was, but that didn't necessarily make him a crap liar all the way round. Plus, what other reason would he have for hiding just how capable he was?

Xander blinked at him. The look of shock that crossed his face was overshadowed an instant later by resignation. "You couldn't see him in the corner of the kitchen? I noticed him just before I headed upstairs. Since no one else said anything, I figured that everyone recognized him."

Sam pushed away from the windowsill and stood menacingly over the shorter man, feeling that familiar anger beginning to bubble up past the lid he'd put over it. Unlike most other people, Xander didn't actually quail under his stare. Usually people were intimidated by his size and, should he choose to use it, temper. Xander met his gaze and simply waited for Sam to speak. "Cass showed up after you left the room. The first time you guys met would've been after you came back down. And he didn't appear out of nowhere. He was sitting at the kitchen table."

His voice had taken on the tell tale growl that was usually followed by massive amounts of violence. He no longer believed that Xander was there to help them. In fact, he was halfway willing to bet that Xander might be possessed by an upper level demon. Those ones could mask their allergy to holy water until they were caught inside of a Devil's Trap. He tried to remember if Xander had ever actually entered the library, the only room on the ground floor level of the house that sported one. The only time he could remember Xander being in the library had been when he and Dean had first gotten back from Crowley's, but he'd stayed at the edge of the room and followed Dean through the hallway entrance to the kitchen.

Bobby was watching them now. He obviously hadn't heard anything that Xander'd said as he didn’t look at all alarmed, just concerned, but Sam's body language had put him on alert. Putting down the book that he'd been flipping through, he wheeled his chair out from behind the desk and asked, "What’s going on?"

Sam ignored him in favour of making sure that Xander stayed exactly where he was. In the kitchen, he heard chairs skittering across the old linoleum and the sound of footsteps approaching. "What are you, Xander? If that really is your name."

"Dude, what the hell?" Dean asked. From the edge of his peripheral vision, Sam could see his brother poised in a stance that was half confusion and on the edge of attack. "Weren't you the one just lecturing me about being nice and giving Xander a shot an hour ago? What happened to all that?"

At his side, Ellen got that frown that she usually reserved for when she was being a mom. She put a hand on Dean's arm, restraining him with only the slightest of touches. "Of course that's Xander. Who else would it be? He worked for me for three months, I know him."

"You said yourself that you didn't recognize him at first, Ellen," Sam countered, never taking his eyes off the man for an instant. When he looked into his remaining eye, all he saw was a blank stare. The only other things that he’d ever seen do that so well had been demons. "How do we know for sure that he is who he says he is? Some demons can pass the holy water test and Xander claims that he saw Cass in the kitchen while we were telling him about killing the devil."

Ellen's frown started to morph from her mom frown to one of concern. "When you asked about the guy in the trench coat, I assumed that you saw him arrive as you were headed up the stairs."

Xander didn't reply, he just stood frozen in place. Outside, full darkness had fallen so the glass had turned into a mirror reflecting a wavering image of the right side of the man’s face. He hadn't moved a muscle since Sam had first started questioning him. Sam had never seen a human stay so still under such intense scrutiny before. Slowly, deliberately, he turned so that he could see the room rather than the window.

In a soft voice that was so devoid of emotion that it reminded Sam curiously of Cass, he stated, "I'm not possessed."

"We can't know that for sure," Sam barked out, "because you've avoided crossing into Bobby's Devil’s Trap all day. Why would a normal human feel the need to do something like that?"

"Well, for one thing, I've never even heard of a Devil's Trap before. I can guess what it does by its name though," Xander countered, some of that humour he'd sported throughout the day returning to his voice. "Point me in its direction and I'll do whatever you want so long as I get to keep my pants."

"Why the hell would we take your pants?" Bobby asked.

Xander gave a shrug. "It always seems to come up in hostage situations like these."

Sam reached behind him and pulled out the Taurus nine millimetre that he'd tucked automatically into the waistband of his jeans once he’d finished cleaning it. In a well-practiced move, he had it in his hands with the the hammer cocked in the blink of an eye. He felt Dean and Ellen tense and heard Jo's harsh outburst of denial. Xander's hands were up in the air before he'd even had a chance to take aim at him. "Now how about you move, nice and easy, towards the fireplace?"

Xander did as he was told, crossing the length of the room without a moment’s hesitation. When he reached the fireplace, he turned to face the room with one raised eyebrow. “Convinced?”

Sam looked up at the ceiling, wanting to be sure that the Devil’s Trap was whole and in working order. Once he saw that it was, he slowly lowered his gun and disengaged the hammer. Trying to modulate the fury that was burning through his veins, he demanded, “Who the hell are you, man?”

“I’m just Joe Shmoe Nobody,” Xander replied immediately. He lowered his hands until his thumbs were tucked into the front pockets of his jeans and levelled Sam with a soft look. It look him a moment to place what he saw there. Understanding and sympathy oozed out of every one of Xander’s pores. “But sometimes, I see things that other people miss.”

Dean took a step further into the room. Sam glanced over at him automatically and flinched at the concern he saw on his brother’s face. “You mean, like seeing angels that no body else can see?”

Xander shrugged.

Suddenly, there was a sound of ruffling feathers and Cass stepped into the room from the hallway. “Xander’s gifts are not demonic in nature.”

“Then what are they?” Bobby asked.

Before Cass could speak, Xander said, “Gifts? What the hell do you mean by gifts? A priest plucked out my eye because I could see way too much and you want to tell me that there’s more?”

“Yes,” Cass replied.

Into the silence that followed, Dean exchanged a slightly wild-eyed look with Sam who just shrugged. He took the moment to tuck away his gun. Not able to take the suspense any longer, Sam finally broke down and asked, “You’ve got us on pins and needles here, Cass. What else is there?”

Castiel straightened a little bit out of the perpetual slouch he’d adopted since taking on his search for God. He waited a heartbeat, and then explained, “We are not sure exactly what Xander is.”

“Wait, what do you mean by we?” Ellen asked.

“Who cares about the ‘we’ crap,” Xander stated. His eye never moved away from Cass. “What about that whole 'don't know what Xander is' thing?”

“As I said, we do not know,” Cass reported. His eyes flickered to Dean and then back to Xander. “What we do know is that, for the past thirteen years, you have torn through at least one prophecy a year. Nothing can defeat true prophecy. Once it is written, it will happen.”

“Okay, good,” Dean said. His body actually relaxed and a grin spread across his face. Sam wasn’t sure if he was going to like whatever Dean was going to say next. “That settles it then.”

From the kitchen, Jo asked, “Settles what, exactly?”

“Xander’s like a shabily dressed get outta jail free card. With him along for the ride, we can’t lose,” Dean explained.

Xander flinched at that. “I hate to break this to you, but I’ve lost plenty of times. Not only fights, but lives, too.”

Dean shrugged. “Okay, fine. But at least we’ve got an edge that we didn’t have before. Now we actually have a chance.”


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

That feeling like something bad was going to happen had been taunting Jo ever since they’d gotten out of their cars to look for Cas. Or, rather, had gotten oh so much worse since then. The feeling had been there, nagging at her ever since they’d gotten into town. It was a feeling she’d gotten mighty familiar with over the past few years, though it was nothing she’d ever been able to put into words. Just a kind of pressure headache that set up shop behind her left eye whenever that bad guy got close and only released once whatever creature-of-the-week was either permanently dead or out of range.

When the group of them reached the intersection and turned the corner, that feeling rocketed up a dozen or so notches into full on alarm status. It was because of this that she wasn’t surprised by the voice from behind them. In fact, she’d been expecting something else to pile on top of their already craptastic demon hunt. Though, she hadn’t quite expected to find what she did when she spun on her heel to face the female voice that had taunted them.

At first, her brain couldn’t make heads or tails out of what her eyes were showing her. Very briefly, she took in the skanky, trailer-trash brunette that stood center stage before her eyes returned – almost of their own volition – to the street behind her. As one tiny part of her brain screamed at her muscles to just run already, another part demanded to know why Dean was verbally sparring with the demon instead of running away like any normal person would be. A quick, glance at first Sam and then Dean told her, though. Both of them were focused solely on the woman that was doing all the talking.

The only thing that Jo knew for a fact scared Dean was hellhounds. In fact, most hunters were terrified of the things. You weren’t supposed to be able to see them unless they were sent to collect on a contract that you’d entered into willingly. All the lore supported the belief. Until this moment, Jo’d been more than ready to say that she’d bet her life she’d never see one. Thanks to the story that she’d dragged out of an incredibly drunk Sam late one night -- or early one morning depending on how a person looked at it -- she’d avoided any hunt that even smelt like it involved dogs of any kind. She’d been that scared of ever coming against one.

And yet she could see them; at least a dozen, though she couldn’t know for sure because she was having a hard time looking past the big one right in front. The hound right at the demon skank’s side stood nearly as tall as the woman’s shoulder. Its head was almost entirely made up of teeth and what wasn’t teeth was blood red, glowing eyes. The thing’s body was all thick and meaty muscle, liberally marked with scars. Though some of those scars were relics from blade or bullet wounds, most seemed to be from teeth and claw. 

Clearly the hound fought with its own pack members more often than it did anything else. As she watched, another slightly bigger -- though leaner -- hound came up on its right flank. The thing turned its head and silently snapped its teeth at the hound, sending it scampering back into place among the rest of the pack. All this was done while the big bitch kept its eyes on Jo. It was almost as if the thing knew that Jo could see it and that made it all the more inclined to want her blood spilled.

While Dean continued to trade words with the demon, Jo managed to pull her eyes away from the awful sight before her only through sheer force of will. Without meaning to, she focused on Xander. He was standing tensed, his single eye closest to her and moving from spot to spot down the street. It only took her a breath to realize that he was tracking each of the hellhounds. In a pause between all the banter, he whispered, “Thirteen.”

“Dean-o, you didn’t think that I came here alone, did you?” the demon asked. And, as if that had been some sort of cue, all the hounds started growling. If Jo hadn’t thought the hounds were all teeth before, the display before her would’ve convinced her. Though the drool was starting to get her attention too. The hound at Meg’s side, shifted restlessly forward as its lips curled even further away from its massive teeth. The movement put the hound’s forepaw into a puddle formed during the earlier rainfall, splashing the water. 

“Hellhounds.”

Dean’s voice was tight with hidden terror, but Jo was sure that she wasn’t the only one who knew that it was there. His fear only kicked her own into overdrive. She shifted the grip she had on her shotgun; having to consciously make sure that she wasn’t clenching the weapon too tightly. A quick check told her that her mom and Sam were both doing the same. A little in front of her, Xander had shifted his hold on the battle-axe that he was carrying so that he held it using just his right hand. His left hand was oh so slowly creeping up and over his shoulder, reaching for something under the collar of his jacket that Jo couldn’t see. One of the hounds spotted the motion and growled in Xander’s direction. Xander froze and slowly lowered his hand.

Just as she returned her attention to the threat in front of her, the glowing red eyes of the hellhound at the head of the pack shifted to look at Dean. As much as the thing had been focused on her a moment before, now its entire focus was on the man at the head of their group. The sound of her own heart pounding in her ears drowned out whatever was being said. Whatever was happening, Jo couldn’t help but think that that hound wanted her dead and was willing to go through Dean to get to her. And then Dean was yelling for them to run and her mom’s urgent tugging on her arm threw her into action.

She fired off a single shot then turned and ran. Her eyes found the sign for a hardware store so she altered her course and pushed her mom ahead of her. As her mom stopped to pull the door to the store open, Jo glanced over her shoulder. Dean was down on the ground with the head hound attached to the heel of his left boot. Without pausing to think, or consider the fact that Xander was supposed to be watching Dean’s back, she brought up her gun.

Her shot took the hound right between the eyes. She took a step toward Dean and the wounded hound as she cocked the barrel of the shotgun and shot the thing for a second time. The second shot freed Dean and he yelled in her direction, but the roaring in her ears made it impossible for her to hear whatever he was saying. She cocked the gun again, but before she could get a third shot off, another hound tackled her to the ground.

She scrambled back using the palms of her hands and her heels. She managed to get a good two feet away from the thing as Xander came up with his axe. He brought the shining blade down on the back of the hound’s skull, but not before the thing lurched forward and dug its claws deep into her flesh. For half a heartbeat, she couldn’t react. Then a loud wailing reached her ears. It was only when she ran out of breath and the sound stopped that she realized that she’d been the one screaming.

Frantically, she tried to push the hound’s corpse off of her, but all of her strength seemed to’ve drained out of her. When Dean came up behind her and started to drag her backwards, she could see why. She was bleeding, bleeding way too much for it to be just a flesh wound. The pain of Dean forcing her to move was unlike anything she’d ever experienced in the past. Her stomach lurched and, when she couldn’t take it any more, she gave in and retched over Dean’s arm. 

He was too busy firing over his shoulder and screaming at her to keep moving to notice the mess she’d made in the street. She couldn’t help looking back when she heard the sounds of flesh tearing, almost expecting to find Xander lying in the street torn to tiny pieces. Instead, Xander was about a foot behind them, his axe covered in the ichor that acted as hellhound blood. The body of yet another hound lay in the street, its lower jaw missing. 

“Jesus, Jo, oh god.” The sound of her mom’s voice in the sudden silence was the only indication Jo had that she’d passed out. She could hear someone in the background laying down salt, but her field of vision was dominated by Ellen’s face. “Don’t you shut your eyes, young lady. You stay with me, you hear?”

“Not gunna go far,” she muttered, her head lolling back to rest against something that really wasn’t all that comfortable. And then she yelled as pressure was put on her wound. The pain brought her back to full consciousness long enough for her to see that it was actually Xander that was working on her wound, not her mom. Blood was everywhere. All over Ellen’s face and hands and there was a single speck of it high on Xander’s left cheek. 

He was gunna look silly if he didn’t wipe if off pretty quick. Oh, and that was probably a little bit of shock setting in. She’d seen it enough times in the field to recognize it in her own thoughts.

“You’re doing pretty good there, Jo. Not too long before you’ll be up and about,” Xander was saying as he held thick, stark white gauze pads over her wound. She wondered where he’d gotten it from. Then she remembered the backpack that he’d insisted on bringing with him when they'd abandoned the vehicles to look for Cas. He was so different from the teenager who’d worked for her mom the summer she’d turned sixteen. She realized right then that she hated how much he’d changed; he just wasn’t the same boy that she’d known then.

She felt floaty. Almost like she had after the doctor’d given her a shot of morphine the time she’d broken her leg when she’d been eight. Curiously, she asked, “I ever tell you that you were my first?”

His eyes flicked up to hers, then nervously to her mom before he went back to work. “That’s the shock that’s talking. A few more minutes from now you’ll be sorry you said anything.”

Ellen t’sked in the back of her throat, then said, “It doesn’t matter, now. You just keep your eyes open, you hear me Joanna Beth Harvelle? Those aren’t nothing but a scratch.”

She nodded and grimaced as Xander tied off her bandage. For a brief moment, her nausea returned and she battled against the urge to gag. When it finally passed, she sighed and sagged against the counter. It was only then that she became aware that both Sam and Dean were watching her while fighting off incredulous expressions. Weakly, she demanded, “What?”

Sam looked away, but Dean glanced as Xander significantly for a moment before meeting her eyes again. “Really?” he asked.

“Whatever,” she muttered.

“We need a plan,” Xander said into the awkward silence that followed. “We can’t just sit here waiting for the devil to do the dirty – whatever that might be.”

“And just what do you expect us to do?” Sam snapped at him. Clearly the eight hours Xander had spent with them during the ride into town had done nothing to improve Sam’s opinion of the older man. “It’s not like he’s rolled out the red carpet for us. There’s gotta be at least a eight hellhounds waiting for us on the other side of that salt line.”

“Nine,” Xander replied, his tone thoughtful more than anything else.

“Stop you guys.” Jo tried to pull herself up a little straighter and failed. The pain that the movement caused made the room spin in lazy circles for a minute. Finally, she just gave up and sagged back down again before saying, “Right now, that doesn’t matter. What does mater is that we’ve got propane, wiring, rock salt, and iron nails. Everything we need.”

“Everything we need for what?” Sam replied, his eyes going soft when he looked at her.

“For building a bomb,” Jo replied with a dark grin.


	9. Chapter 9

Timeline: Halfway through the events of "Abandon All Hope"   
Disclaimer: I've paraphrased a handful of lines from the episode in question. Anything recognizable belongs to Eric Kripke.   
Pairings: light Xander/Jo and Dean/Jo

 

Ellen pulled her belt as tight as she could and fought the urge to wince away when her ministrations made Jo blanch, turning her already pale skin to a sickly white. There was little doubt in her mind that what she was doing wasn’t absolutely necessary, but that didn’t mean that she had to like it. She hated to cause her daughter any more pain on top of what she was already enduring.

“Shh, shh, honey,” she whispered softly. As she spoke, she wrapped the end of the belt around Jo’s thigh and secured it by tucking the end through where the buckle sat against the outside of her leg. “I’ve got you, don’t you worry. Everything’s gunna be just fine once we get this bleeding stopped.”

Jo’s left leg was badly mangled. The hell hound’s claw had caught her in her lower abdomen and the four neat slices continued down her leg until about an inch above her knee. Before Xander’d gotten the bandages in place, she’d seen the slick white shine of bone peeking through the fleshiest part of Jo’s thigh. Despite how clean the cuts were, Ellen wasn’t sure if Jo’d ever walk right again. If she did, it would take a hell’f a lot of work. And that meant getting her out of this death trap of a town and to a hospital as soon as five minutes ago.

Jo’s head lolled again so that her chin touched her chest for a moment before she jerked upright abruptly; the blood loss was clearly affecting her ability to stay awake. Through half lidded eyes, she watched Ellen as she applied an additional layer of bandages over the ones already there. The first set of bandages was soaked through already and Ellen didn’t want to risk any more blood loss by removing them. As she worked, Ellen kept up an endless stream of nonsense words and reassurances.

With the fresh bandages in place, there wasn’t much else that Ellen could do for Jo besides hold her hand. For a solid minute she had absolutely no idea what she should do. She was torn between wanting to stay at her daughter’s side and the knowledge that her giving the boys a hand could mean all the difference in the coming fight. She knew what needed to be done and she knew that her help could be instrumental, but that meant leaving Jo to sit all by herself in a pool of her own blood. 

“Mom…” Jo’s voice was soft, with a breathless quality that hinted at her being unable to take a complete lungful of air. Not only that, but her eyes and lips were pinched tight. Ellen imagined that she was in more pain than most people could bear let alone stay conscious through.

"Shhh, shhh," she repeated, not wanting Jo to exert herself any more than she already had. "Don't you talk now. Save your strength, baby."

Jo’s eyes rolled back in her head and her eyelids fluttered closed again. When she finally managed to pry her eyes open again, her gaze caught on something over Ellen's shoulder. Ellen glanced over to see Dean standing behind her with his pack slung over one shoulder. He gave Ellen an awkward smile that didn’t quite make to his eyes and cocked his head in Jo’s direction. The question there was clear, but she had no idea how to answer it. For all she knew, Jo could be dying and there was nothing they could do to stop it. 

Ellen swallowed hard against the knot that seemed to’ve taken up permanent residence in the back of her throat. Not wanting Jo to see her cry, she stepped back so that Dean could hunker down next to her daughter and distract her. The two of them didn't speak; Dean simply picked up Jo's closest hand and manipulated the limp fingers to wrap around the triggering device that the boys had cobbled together. The cord that connected it to the bomb brushed against her leg and Ellen looked down at the heavy gauge wire. When she looked up again, the tears that had spilled over onto her cheeks trailed down her face. 

As she watched, Dean seemed to come to a decision and leaned in to press a hard kiss against Jo’s forehead. For a long time, it seemed, the two of them stayed frozen together like that before Dean finally pulled away. When he did, he made a sound in the back of his throat and touched his lips gently to Jo’s. 

The hand on her shoulder made Ellen jump, but she didn't turn away from the intimate moment playing out in front of her until Dean finally broke the kiss. She looked up at Xander, but his face was obscured by the eye patch that he wore. Shifting so that Xander was holding most of her weight, she whispered, “I don’t think that I can do this without her.”

"I know," Xander said simply. His grip on her arm tightened almost imperceptibly before he drew her down into a crouching position. He wrapped his arms tightly around her shoulders while his eye stayed locked on the pair in front of them. 

Sam came barrelling around the corner. He slid to a stop at his brother's side and gasped out, "They're inside."

"Press it!" Xander hissed. His whole body was tense but, then again, so was Ellen's and she hadn't been the one to set the charges. 

Ellen watched transfixed as Jo and Dean's fingers moved to press down on the trigger together. Beside them, Sam braced himself against the side of the dumpster they were all squeezed behind. Only a heartbeat after the trigger was pressed, the bomb went off. The concussive force of the bomb threw the dumpster back as glass showered over them. It took them a few moments to recover; when they did, Sam pushed the dumpster out of the way and they all took in the sight of the hardware store engulfed in flame.

“It worked,” Sam breathed, his voice coloured with astonishment. 

"Do you think any of the hounds survived?" Ellen couldn't help asking as Dean pulled her to her feet.

Beside her, Xander shifted to withdraw his axe and altered his stance for better balance. She'd never met a person quite so comfortable handling a bladed weapon before. Even the Winchesters seemed downright awkward in comparison with Xander. He took a step towards the blaze, his single eye sweeping the wreckage. After a moment, he froze in place and in a tight voice, he said, “Yes.”

Sam’s hands tightened into fists and his jaw flexed. “How do you know?” he demanded moments before the sound of a vicious snarl reached them. 

Amazed that she could hear anything above the roar of the fire, Ellen backed up a few steps involuntarily. The bark of a second hound sent her heart racing and froze her in place. 

“Whatever you do,” Xander said as he took a step towards the sound of the hounds, “don’t run.”

And then he was raising his axe with a yell. He threw himself into the air and seemed to fly for a moment. It took Ellen’s brain several moments to comprehend what she was seeing. Xander wasn’t flying in the strictest sense, he’d landed on the back of one of the hounds and, from the sounds it was making, it was clear that it wasn’t impressed. Snarls and yelps came from the beast Xander’d landed on as Sam was knocked to the ground by another one.

“Sammy!” Dean yelled. He brought up the colt and fired until the gun ran dry. The sickly black ichor that was hell hound blood painted the street with each explosion of sound that issued from the weapon. Between each shot, Sam managed to get a little further away from the general direction that the beast was coming from. 

From out of nowhere, it seemed, Xander appeared standing behind Sam. He brought his axe up over the younger Winchester and swung down hard. Ellen felt an involuntary scream tear itself from the very back of her throat as she watched the blade slice through the air. It imbedded itself in something that she couldn’t see about two feet above Sam’s head and hovered there for two full heartbeats before it abruptly dropped. Sam let out a startled woof of air; his whole body was seemingly plastered to the cement by an invisible force. 

Xander tugged his axe free, then reached down to push the hound off of Sam. He offered a hand to help Sam up, but was ignored as Sam got himself into a standing position. Sam didn’t even bother to thank Xander; he simply turned and retrieved his duffle from a few feet away. 

Ellen turned away from the amazing sight to find Dean standing with Jo cradled in his arms. Her daughter was finally, blessedly, unconscious, but Ellen felt her heart nearly freeze. Dean's eyes were wide; the kind of wide that, for most people, meant they were about to fall apart. "Okay. Now that we've set the building on fire and told every demon for miles exactly where we are, can we please leave?"

A half hour later, they were all crowed around Ellen's pickup. Jo was laid out in the back seat, propped up against the door while Xander added yet more bandages to her wounds. It seemed as though his bag sported an endless supply. As he worked, Jo's eyes slowly opened again. He seemed to take this in stride and traded grins with Jo as he flippantly asked, "Just how in the heck are you awake? There are only a handful of people that I know that could manage consciousness with the amount of blood that you’ve lost. I know that I wouldn’t be able to keep my eye open."

Xander’s grin went a little silly on the edges as he fiddled with the edge of the gauze pad that he held. Right there was the boy Ellen had known nearly ten years ago. That self-deprecating humour and less than completely sure of himself attitude was exactly what she’d watched Jo fall in love with all those years ago. It’d helped that he’d kept his distance from her physically and only offered her friendship at first. He’d been one of the first guys who’d recognized Jo as a desirable woman but had treated her with respect and friendship rather than blatant lust. The blatant lust had come later, though not much later, and boy had it been reciprocated.

"Oh… you… know… me," Jo replied, her voice slightly breathless with pain and words slightly slurred. Regardless of Jo’s injuries, that old attraction was still there between them, just waiting to be reignited. And, unlike with Dean, Ellen knew that if they did end up together, it could be a wonderful thing. "I live… to… defy the… odds."

In the front seat, Dean was on the CB trying to raise Bobby. The old S.O.B. was supposed to've contacted them as soon as he got any kind of useful information, but the demon related blackout that'd turned their cell phones into nothing better than useless chunks of plastic had put a bit of a damper in that plan. All Ellen could think was that thank God Bobby was as paranoid as he was or the boys would be left on their own to wander the town without any idea of what to do next. 

She tuned back in just in time to hear, "...everyone all right?"

Dean glanced at her. Ellen felt her heart leap into her throat at the glint of tears she saw shining in his eyes. Into the mic, Dean said, "Ah, no, Jo was hurt pretty bad..."

"Can you get her out?" Bobby asked.

Dean looked down and closed his eyes as he said, “Bobby, I don’t think that she’s…” The rest of his words were lost as he choked back a sob. He put a hand to his lips and looked up, ignoring Ellen when she touched his arm.

“I said can you get her out?”

"Right," Dean said. He took a deep breath and, finally, looked over at Jo. Something in the way that he looked at her had changed; their kiss had changed things. Ellen could tell that, for the first time Dean was seeing her as something other than just another conquest. And while Ellen was pretty sure that Jo would give her left leg for a real chance with Dean, she also knew that with Xander back in the picture he was up for some pretty hefty competition. If they all made it through the night alive.

“Okay, right.” He sat up a little and seemed to brace himself before giving Bobby the lowdown on everything that’d happened since they’d got into town. With as few words as were necessary, he summed up the day’s events before asking, “What can you tell us, Bobby?"

"Well, for one thing Carthage aint as all squeaky clean as it's been made out to be. A big battle went down there. A lotta people died... it was so bad that the soldiers stationed there called it the Battle of Hell Hole. Do you have any idea how many Reapers Cass saw?"

Ellen stepped closer. Dean held the mic in her direction and she said, "From the number of places that Castiel's eyes went, there had to be over a dozen Reapers. Maybe more."

"That sounds like Death," Bobby said cryptically. 

Dean frowned and traded confused looks with his brother. Finally, he said, "Well, yeah...?"

" 'The' Death. You know, 'Angel of' rides a pale horse, that Death?" Bobby's voice was tight with repressed terror. The boys might not've recognized it, but she’d worked with him enough times to know when he was scared and he was beyond scared at this point. "From the sounds of it, Lucifer's set to raise him. He needs to be brought forth in a place of awful carnage and Carthage is that place. And, Dean, it goes down at midnight."

"Of course it does," Dean replied. His head fell back against the headrest and his eyes slowly closed as he just breathed for a minute. Finally, when the lines around his eyes had smoothed out slightly, he asked, "Where's it go down?"

"On the land of William Jasper's farm."

"Thanks, Bobby." Once Bobby had relayed the exact location of the farm, Dean was quick to get out of the truck. Once standing, Dean scooped Ellen up in hug that pulled her off her feet. She was so surprised by his actions that she didn't get a chance to return his affection before he let her go. He looked down at her, but the shadows masking his face made it impossible for her to make out what he might be thinking. "You get Jo to the hospital and you get her better, you hear me?" he demanded, his voice coming out in a gruff tone that hinted at tears. 

She nodded quickly and reached up to wipe away her own tears. She wasn't stupid; she'd probably never see her boys again. And, by God, she couldn't help feeling like they were hers. She turned away from Dean only to be caught up in an equally as tight and quick hug from Sam. The younger of the Winchesters didn't say anything, though. He just squeezed her and then stomped off a few yards down the road. 

Dean turned and ducked down to look in at Jo and Xander. With his back to her, Ellen couldn't see what passed between them, but she did see Jo's eyes soften as the shine of tears welled up. Jo weakly reached out and caught the closest of Dean's hands in one of hers for a moment before her strength seemed to fail her and she slumped back. Dean withdrew quickly after that and joined his brother. Xander wasn't long to follow; he reached out to touch Jo's cheek briefly, then stepped out. 

“You and me, after I help with this whole devil thing, I think that we need to have a chat.” Xander’s face was utterly serious as he held Jo’s gaze. After a long moment, he glanced at Ellen briefly then said, “You shouldn’t have survived that attack, Jo. Any normal human would be dead by now with the kinds of wounds that you’ve suffered. Only a certain kind of woman could make it this far after a hit like this.”

“What… kind?” Jo whispered, her eyes already sinking closed. Ellen could tell that she was fighting with every fibre of her being to stay conscious. 

Xander grinned. “The slaying kind.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Anything recognizable belongs to Erik Kripke. See full disclaimer at the end of this chapter.

Lucifer studied Castiel with the same detached manner that he used with his followers. He took in the slouch of his shoulders and dullness in his eyes. Just beyond the human capability of sight, only the bare minimum of grace necessary to differentiate angels from humans could be seen. Castiel’s wings were worn ragged and nearly completely devoid of feathers. Lucifer would be surprised if the angel could even use the most basic of his holy powers.

The other angel, one after his own heart what with his little mini-rebellion, thought differently than most of his brothers. While his love for the humans that were his charges was at the very least creepy and at the most repulsive, Lucifer had to admit he was one of the few true believers. His belief that their Father still loved them, the angels, and that He would care about the battle being fought if only it was explained to Him was, beyond a doubt, singular. These days it was hard to find an angel that even believed that God still existed, let alone could give a crap.

Alternatively, more and more demons were becoming believers. It was almost a shame that most of them were going to die in the night’s sacrifice. He kind of enjoyed being worshiped as a god.

“Tell me,” he said into the quiet of the dank room, “what’s it like to have your grace slowly run out?”

Castiel visibly clenched his jaw and looked away. After a long wait, he finally whispered, “Painful.”

“I bet,” Lucifer replied. “To know that, with every breath, you are one closer to being nothing more than human must be the worst feeling you’ve ever experience. Why did you waste so much of your grace to visit heaven last night?”

The corner of Castiel’s lip turned upwards and his eyes lit up ever so slightly. His expression, alone, told Lucifer that there was more going on than he was aware of. He crossed his arms over his chest and touched the fingers of his right hand to his chin as he considered his next move. When Meg entered the room, he was saved the effort of making any immediate decisions so he turned his attention to the approaching demon and waited for her to report.

“I had the Winchesters pinned down – for a while, at least,” she reported, frowning deeply.

He nodded. “Were they alone?”

“Um… no. There were two women with them and a man wearing an eye patch.”

Lucifer stiffened. It couldn’t be. His eyes whipped back to Castiel, taking in the other angel’s almost smug expression. There was only one man that matched Meg’s description and could cause that level of confidence. Only a specific one eyed man would give him any kind of pause.

He’d been so careful to have his disciples stir up as much trouble as possible in Europe. And equally as careful to keep his movements in North America as low-key as he’d been able. Considering the punches his flunkies were throwing all over Asia, throughout northern Kazakhstan and in the depths of Russia, he shouldn’t’ve been more than the smallest of blips of the Watchers’ radar. With that ever so annoying Wolfram and Hart no longer around to kick its heels like a toddler throwing a tantrum, drawing as much attention to itself as possible, it’d been the best time for him to act in centuries.

“What did you want me to do about them?” Meg asked, interrupting his train of thought.

Distracted, he waved a hand at her and said, “Leave them alone.”

Astonished, she took a step towards him. “I-I’m sorry, but are you sure? Shouldn’t we—”

“Trust me, child,” he said softly as he reached out to stroke her cheek. He took a breath to cover a shudder of revulsion at touching her flesh. The Watcher was a fly in the ointment of his plan, but there was no way that this one man could undo a century’s worth of planning. He might need to step up his game a bit, but that didn’t mean he was going to give up without even making an attempt. “Everything happens for a reason.”

On the edge of his vision, he saw Castiel casing the room. Looking for the flaw in his prison. "Well, Castiel. You have some time." He threw a bored glance over his shoulder as an excuse for releasing the demon. "Time to change your mind."

The look on Castiel's face nearly made him laugh out loud. He grinned impishly before reorienting himself at the site of the future sacrifice. He paused to take in the repugnant sight of the demon infested humans waiting before him. Of course all of them would be dead before the night was through, but that didn't mean he had to like having them there. At least he could look foreword to some time spent dolling out some decent torture. Some of them might even enjoy themselves before they died in agony if he did it right.

In the back of his mind, he felt poor Nick scream his defiance. The man, so weak in so many ways besides the fact that he was just a measly little human meat bag, had been begging him for death since the moment Lucifer had taken full control. Lucifer, being the truthful angel that he was, had been kind enough to let Nick in on his Big Plan from moment one. He’d been instantly rewarded with the man's complete and utter devastation. Nick's constant agony at having willingly given over his body to be host to the devil was one of the greatest perks Lucifer could've imagined. He constantly anguished over how he played a pivotal part in the Earth’s destruction. Lucifer’s last vessel hadn't been nearly as much fun. 

"You're really going to go through with this, aren't you?"

Lucifer glanced over to check out the meat bag that old Zac was wearing and fought the urge to laugh out loud. The last time Zachariah had descended to Earth, he'd worn the meat of a great soldier; a giant of his time, thick with muscle and brains. Zac had very nearly been proud of his vessel. Or he would've been if he hadn't been so sickened at having to wear human flesh in order to walk among them. 

"Yes, it's all very funny," Zac snapped, his eyes shooting metaphorical sparks. It wouldn't've been polite for him to use actual sparks. He took a moment to look out over the field that stretched before them. Already the pit that Lucifer’s acolytes had dug was lined with the bodies of the young, infirm, or just plain annoying. "You really think that raising Death is necessary?"

"Necessary... not at all. But fun, nevertheless," Lucifer replied with his own version of a Mona Lisa smile. He had perfected the technique centuries before the phrase had been coined, of course. 

He headed across the field, taking note of those that hissed and growled at his brother as they passed. After the third demon infested corpse dropped to the ground, those that called him father fell silent. He retrieved one of the many shovels that littered the ground and leaned against the handle. From below, the stench of nearly a thousand dead bodies rose up. 

"You're doing this for fun?" Zac asked. His surface thoughts easily revealed that he didn't really care about Lucifer's actions, only that he wanted to know what he was planning to use Death for. 

"Of course!" Lucifer replied. He took up the shovel and hefted a few piles of dirt into the pit for no other reason than to feel Nick squirm. Cowardly Nick abhorred the sight of the terror twisted faces being speckled with dirt from the shovel that he held. He paused briefly and grinned in Zac's direction. "Well, that and for a chance to see the Winchester boys. You know, they are harder to get ahold of than almost anyone besides God, Himself?"

"The Winchesters are here!" Zac exclaimed. He spun in place, his eyes scanning the surrounding forest. "How did you know they'd come?"

Lucifer pointedly looked down and then across at the demons that surrounded them. Dryly, he said, "It's hard to keep a party like this a secret even when you try to. Which I didn't."

He pressed the shovel back into the soil to prop it up and crossed his arms over his chest. He cocked an eyebrow at his brother while Zac stood there spluttering. He stayed that way until movement in the bushes caught his attention. With a flourish, he turned in time to watch Sam making his way between the horde of demons littering the field. 

"You wanted to see me?" Sam yelled, cocking a shotgun as he approached.

Lucifer spread his hands in a supplicating gesture. The movement allowed him to push Zac to the side and see Sam in person for the first time since he'd been released. "Oh, Sam," he intoned softly, "you don't need that gun here. You know I'd never hurt you. Not really."

"Yeah?" Dean asked, his presence on the opposite side of him from Zac not a surprise, only his proximity. He raised the colt level with Lucifer's forehead and pulled back the hammer. “Well, I'd hurt you. So suck it.”

He dropped not because the shot had hurt him in any way, but because Nick's nervous system went immediately haywire thanks to the bullet that lodged itself into his brain. And even as powerful as he was, it took him a minute to dissolve the bullet and repair the damage it'd caused to Nick's cerebellum. Plus, it was just fun to mess with the Winchesters after some of the trouble that they'd caused him, what with running War into hiding. 

Vaguely, he took note of Zac breaking into loud whoops of laughter. 

"Ow!" he yelled as he got to his feet, just to see the look of shock and horror pass over Dean's face. It was more fun messing with the poor Winchesters than almost anything else.

At his side, Zac -- finally recovered from his fit -- demanded, "Where did you get that?”

Not bothering to wait for an answer, Lucifer hit Dean in the middle of his chest. Though he only used a fraction of the strength he had at his disposal, Dean still flew through the air until his flight was interrupted by a tree. Feeling vaguely justified by the sound of bones snapping, he couldn't stifle a grin as he turned back to Sam. "Now, where were we?"

Zac, clearly not satisfied, advanced on Dean. He held a hand out before him with his fingers curled. On the ground, Dean writhed in agony as Zac wrought havoc with his organs. "Did you think that you, a simple little mud monkey, could take on Lucifer? Michael is the only one that will fight him. They will fight on a predestined battle field, of which you could never comprehend. Their battle will be the greatest battle of all time and it will purify this Earth!"

"Hey, ass-butt!"

All eyes turned to Castiel who stood with his holy sword in hand. He ran at Zac, tackling the other angel using sheer brute force. Whatever power he'd expended to arrive at the field like he had, had clearly drained him completely of all his reserves. The two angels struggled until, through what looked like sheer dumb luck, Castiel managed to pin Zac down and shove his sword through the bottom of Zac's jaw until the tip punched out the top of his head. After a long pause, Castiel let Zac slump to the ground. There was a flash of holy light as his meat suit gave one last shudder and the impression of his wings scorched into the earth surrounding him. 

From the bushes, Dean asked weakly, "Ass-butt?"

Lucifer felt fury bubble up inside of him. He turned his gaze on Castiel and, in a deceptively calm tone, said, "Castiel. Did you just use your holy weapon to kill my brother?"

He allowed Castiel to send a wide-eyed look in Dean's direction before he snapped his fingers, exploding Castiel into a shower of bite-sized pieces. That done, he held Sam in place with his will as he walked towards Dean. Angrily, he stated, "You know, I've tried to be nice. For Sammy's sake. He'd never say yes if I killed you. But you... are such a pain... in my ass!"

"No!" Sam yelled impotently. 

Ignoring him, Lucifer pulled Dean into a standing position by his collar. He could've just as easily willed him to stand, but it was more fun to intimidate him physically. Raising his fist, he punched Dean across his jaw with his full strength. The sound of bones crumbling and muscles tearing was like a balm. 

He was in the process of hitting him again, when the tip of an angel blade burst through his back. He froze, eyes wide and mouth gaping. The pain of it burning against poor little Nick's thundering heart was unlike even the hellfire that made up the walls of the cage he'd so eagerly escaped. He craned his neck to look over his shoulder at the man who’d wielded the blade and gaped at the sight of one Alexander Harris. "How...?"

“You didn’t really think that I would fall for the colt, did you?” he asked calmly.

Lucifer's nerveless fingers let Dean fall to the ground as the he felt the tip of the blade scrape ever so slightly against the sack that surrounded Nick’s heart. Black spots cropped up in his field of vision and drawing the breath necessary to speak felt like swallowing a mouthful of knives. Between one instant and the next, he found himself coughing and spitting as the foul taste of Nick's blood filled his mouth. He managed to whisper, ”But, it's not possible."

Harris smiled wryly as he draped a free arm around his shoulders. “Listen up, Satan, I see things. Castiel,” his voice dropped into a dark growl as he spoke the dead angel’s name, “he told me that I’m extra special. And he’s not the first to say so. There was this priest, this one time, that decided to dig out my eyes because of the things that I can see. Did you know, the first thing that I saw when I met the Winchesters was just how dumb they were? They were absolutely convinced that the only way to kill you was with their fancy demon killing gun.”

“I thought that they might,” Lucifer returned, panting slightly. He flexed his shoulders in an effort to release himself, but the arm around his shoulders was vice tight. “They shouldn't feel too bad, though. There’s only five things in all of creation that that gun can’t kill and … I just happen to be one of them.”

“Riii-ight,” Harris drawled, dragging the word out into two syllables. 

A ragged chuckle escaped him and Lucifer continued, “Of course, I had a little help making them think it would work. The angels scrubbed their brains real good right after Dean got out of hell. They wouldn’t have believed the colt couldn’t kill me even if they were told so. Only seeing it not work could break through their conditioning.”

He felt a sudden pressure and watched, stunned, as the tip of the angel blade appeared in the middle of his chest. Even through the blood that coated its surface, he could see the gleam of its holy light. His ears ringing, he looked up in time to see Harris and Sam each grabbing one of Dean’s arms. He fell to his knees and gasped for unnecessary breath. Within him, Nick gave a sigh of relief. The last thing he saw as the white light of his power exploded out of his control was Castiel reaching down to a fully healed Dean. 

 

 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimers: All recognizable dialogue borrowed from “Abandon All Hope” (Ep. 5.10, Act 4) and “Swan Song” (Ep. 5.22, Act 5).


	11. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Dialogue borrowed from Supernatural episode "Swan Song" (5.22) for further disclaimers see end of chapter.  
> Author's Note: ... See end of chapter.

***

Xander gasped for air automatically when they landed. Weakly, he staggered away from Cas and the Winchesters and grabbed at the nearest solid surface. The cracked formica of Bobby's kitchen counter held his weight with a minimum of protest while he waited for his stomach to catch up with the rest of him. A trip via angel transportation was probably the worst way he'd traveled to date. And that included demon portals. 

Across from him, he watched as Sam tilted backwards alarmingly before he caught the back of a nearby chair and managed to fall into it. The younger Winchester had gone white in the face and his shotgun hung from his fingers limply. 

Out of all of them, Dean seemed least affected. He was still in the prone pose he'd been in back at the farm, leaning against the leg of Bobby's kitchen table. In a tired voice, he whispered, "Cas? You're alive."

Feeling better with every breath, Xander turned his attention to the angel. For a guy who'd been blown to bits less than an hour before, he looked remarkably good. His trench coat was wrinkle free, his tie was tight to his collar and the cuffs of his slacks were dust free. The dark shadow of large, thickly feathered wings seemed to hang over his shoulders for a moment before both they and that otherworldly light he exuded slipped away. For the first time since Xander'd met the angel, he seemed completely unremarkable. In fact, he was nearly invisible. 

Cas smiled down at Dean before walking over to Bobby who sat staring at them in shock. As he reached down to touch the old man's shoulder, he said, “I am better than that."

Bobby's left knee twitched and his expression melted into a look of wonder as he pulled himself to his feet. He stood completely still for a solid minute looking down at his legs. Suddenly, he jumped up and walked across the room in three long strides. On his return trip, he exclaimed, "Jeezuhs! Every single ache is gone. No arthritis, no tight muscles. I feel ten years younger." 

"Hey, Cas," Dean said in a whisper, "are you God?"

Xander couldn't repress the bark of incredulous laughter that escaped him. He gave up trying to be any kind of manly and slid to the floor. His arms were like spaghetti and his knees felt beyond bruised. It felt like he'd packed about six months of terror into the past twenty-four hours. As far as he was concerned, he deserved at least a weeks' worth of sleep and double vacation time. "You're joking, right?"

“Xander's right." Cas circled the room slowly as he spoke. When he passed the fireplace, Xander caught sight of a stunted angel leaning against the mantle with his arms crossed over his chest. He cocked an eyebrow at Xander when he stared and brought a single finger to his lips in the universal request for silence. "As much as I appreciate the compliment, no, I’m not God. Although, I do believe He brought me back. New and improved.” 

“What’re you gunna do now?” Sam asked. 

Cas looked over at the other angel and mused, “Return to heaven, I suppose.”

“Heaven?” Xander asked.

“With Lucifer incorporeal again and death on the loose, the angels will be redoubling their efforts to recruit Dean. They will want him in their pocket before Lucifer gets the chance to convince Sam to say yes.” Cas explained. 

And there it was, Xander decided. That pivotal tidbit of information he'd been missing. Or, at the very least, one of the pieces that the Winchesters had been withholding. Not that it really mattered. Sam couldn't help being Lucifer's human counterpart. Just like Ben couldn't've helped being Glory's. He rested his forearms across his knees and let his head fall back against the cupboard door with a thump.

“Incorporeal?” Bobby asked the thin air where Cas had stood. “Did he just say what I think he said?”

“You mean the part where Lucifer’s still live and kicking and Death just got a free pass?” the other angel drawled loudly. “That would be a big yes, sir!”

"Gabriel," Dean growled. Xander'd never met a human before with that particular ability. Plenty of vampires, sure, but never a human.

Gabriel flounced across the library and into the kitchen. He hopped up onto the counter next to Xander, looking Cas's exact opposite. He was like a walking flashlight of power and he wasn't making any unnecessary attempts to hide his inner glow. Once comfortable, he waved his fingers and a bowl of gummy worms shimmered into existence in his hands. He immediately picked up a fistful and shoved them into his mouth. 

“What the hell’re you here for?” Bobby demanded.

“I’m here for the kid,” Gabriel muttered through a mouth full of candy. 

Fed up, Xander yelled, “Why?! What the hell is so great about me?”

“You’re nephilim, that’s what,” Gabriel drawled, grinning wide enough to put the Cheshire Cat to shame. “Being able to wield my archangel blade proves it.”

"Seriously?" Sam asked, stunned.

"Can't make this stuff up."

“Okay, seriously, what’s the deal with you, dude?" Dean said, looking at Xander. He wore a look of utter exasperation on his face.

Xander glared at him. "Like I'm supposed to know!? Until two days ago, angels were chubby little babies with wings and harps. I'm supposed to be the normal one out of all my friends. My best friends are a slayer and a mega Wicca.” Looking up at Gabriel, he demanded, “What the hell is a nephilim?”

“Well, technically…” Bobby said, “It’s a fancy term for a half angel.”

"Wrong," Gabriel said quickly. He put down his dish and it immediately disappeared. "Nephilim have gotten a bad rap over the years. They aren't half or fallen angels or giants or the great evil that a lot of the so called holy books out there make them out to be. It’s simply a term used to describe a person who’s human. Completely human. About 99.9 percent of everyone on earth has a little something mixed in, but nephilim just don't. Nephilim are the only humans in the world with the potential to become angels. Not just the meat suit we use here on earth, but full blown holy light bright, feathery winged, halo wearing angels."

“Son of a bitch,” Dean drawled out slowly. 

"You're telling me that the reason I'm so freakin' special is because I'm so human!?" Xander asked. "So, what, now I'm buttmonkey to the angels?"

"No," Gabriel said over Dean's snorted, "Buttmonkey."

"In fact, until you get into heaven, you'll probably be the bane of whoever's in charge upstairs," Gabriel said. “Which is why I plan on sticking by you.”

Xander took a deep breath. He was completely human. The reason he was so special was because he was just human. Willow would be totally psyched when he got the chance to tell her. 

***

_“Endings are hard. Any chapped-ass monkey with a keyboard can poop out a beginning, but endings are impossible. You try to tie up every loose end, but you never can. The fans are always gonna bitch. There’s always gonna be holes. And since it’s the ending, it’s all supposed to add up to something. I’m telling you, they’re a raging pain in the ass.”_

***

The End

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: All info on Nephilim shamelessly borrowed (and then revised) from Wikipedia.   
> Author's Note: Short and sweet. Originally this chapter was nearly half the size of this entire fic, what with me trying to close off every little plot turn I introduced. I know that there was a lot that was just glossed over. Lucifer isn't dead. Death was still released. Jo's fate left unsaid. As for Xander, each time a reviewer asked (or guessed) exactly what he really was I asked myself the same question. I chose human because I like the idea of Xander having special powers because he's human. I hope that you've enjoyed reading my work and many thanks for sticking it out to the end! Hugs, Ms Sunshine
> 
> ***


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